The Ordinary People
by theAdventurer0815
Summary: Another run-in with his arch enemy leaves the Doctor believing himself to be but an ordinary university professor, and while Sarah keeps a close eye on his new life on Earth, UNIT finds that maybe they have to save their planet themselves… [Features Harry POV once per Episode]
1. A New Adventure Begins (Ep1)

A shameless recycling of the key plot element to 'Human Nature', but literally everything else is new.

This story follows the events of _"The Race_ _F_ _or Time"_ , but works on its own.  
 _\- Features in minor roles: Benton, a time echo of Clara Oswald, the Brigadier and the Peter Pratt Master._

* * *

==== ==== EPISODE 1 ==== ====

 _{In which Sarah discovers what it's like to lose the Doctor...}_

Clack. Whooosh.

Clack. Whooosh.

It was the sound of not one, but two people on roller skates nearing the TARDIS' second console room. They would enter very soon from the inner corridor, a place with bleached white walls and strange round circles in them. Almost all of the rooms and hallways inside of the space craft, had a clean, futuristic design, but the second console room was one of the few exceptions. Its wooden panelling, the inner railing around the hexagonal console, and even the console itself showed no resemblance to any highly advanced piece of technology as humans could imagine them. Stained glass roundels as well as the ornaments in the wooden furniture were more likely to remind the occasional visitor of the Edwardian age in Earth's old England.

"...And then, here we have it!" The cheery sounding voice of a man echoed down the corridor and into the room, followed only shortly by the man himself. From the corridor rolled in a lanky, grinning fellow wearing a dark red frock coat on top of a white shirt and a plaid waistcoat. His unusual fashion sense described the man's personality without the use of words. He was timeless, yet eccentric. Silly, yet fun-loving. Ingenious, yet mad.  
Trailing after him, other than the ends of his impractical long wool scarf, was a young woman in a jumper adorned by a red neckerchief, and combined with a loose cut pair of trousers. Her name was Sarah-Jane Smith and unlike her extraordinary Gallifreyan friend, she came from Earth – the mid 1970's to be precise. Admittedly, she had not stood on a pair of roller skates for a very long time. Rolling along with little control over her direction, she had almost missed the entrance to the console room had she not gotten a hold of the door frame in the last second.

The Doctor, as usual, was much better at it – just as he was at almost everything he tried his hand at. He swirled around as he made his entrance and exclaimed: "The second console room!" On his face was a grin so wide you might be led to believe he had just discovered the room for the first time in his very long life. But Sarah knew him good enough to understand that he was just joking.

"Yes, I know that one already.", she told him and pushed herself away from the door frame to roll towards the railing which surrounded the hexagonal console in the centre. "Come on now, there are plenty of other places in the TARDIS to show me, aren't there?"

"Well, yes. Of course there are.", the Doctor admitted and stepped forward, past the railing towards the console, although swaying slightly with the set of wheels under his feet. "Just hold on a minute, I will quickly set the coordinates for our next destination before I forget about it again, and then we may continue your guided tour." After he gestured for Sarah not to wander off without him, he pulled down a cover on the furniture piece which housed the controls and pressed a few buttons. "The Louvre, you said? I know a great place where we can park the TARDIS nearby! There's a little modern art gallery just a few streets off the Champ Élysées. I'll land us next to a Piet Mondrian and everyone will think we're part of the exhibition. Ha ha!"

"Modern art?" The young woman crossed her arms and leaned over the railing to watch him work. Her feet kept sliding thanks to the roller skates and she had to correct her posture several time to keep herself from clumsily dropping to the floor. As she spoke, she could barely keep herself from laughing. "You can hardly call a 1950's police box _**modern**_ art, can you?" Back in Britain, the TARDIS' outer shape was neither modern nor art at the point in time she was from.

With a smug smile the Doctor turned to face her. "Did you know that _Red, Blue and Yellow_ was painted in the 1920's? I dare say that we will look quite futuristic in comparison, then."

There was no arguing with his extensive knowledge or logical deduction, especially not if they were just joking in the first place. Sarah rolled her eyes thinking _'That Doctor!'_ and pushed herself back from the railing – though without letting go, so she would not roll throughout the room uncontrollably again.

Tidy as he was – or sometimes, anyway – the Doctor closed the cover of the controls again before turning around. "I set a delay, so we have plenty of time to look around the TARDIS still.", he casually mentioned and nodded into the direction of the TARDIS' inner corridor. "Come on-!"

Just barely had he been able to finish speaking, when the time machine was suddenly shaken violently by the impact of an unknown force. Since both of them were still standing on roller skates, Sarah slipped immediately, without any prior warning and she would have fallen to the floor had she not been holding onto the inner railing of the room already. It was just in the second she thought that for once she was safe from being thrown about the ship when she looked up and saw the Doctor falling towards her. Unlike her, he had missed the railing and instead reached now for his companion to steady himself on, but the force of impact as well as his weight were too much for Sarah to catch. Not only did he knock her down to the wooden floor, but ended up sprawled crosswise over her, too.

"Ow! Doctor!", she called out as the first moment of surprise had passed. "If you need me to catch you should lose some weight on the next regeneration!" There was no harm done, but she was compelled to complain just for the sake of it. His tall figure had her buried underneath with little hope of freeing herself, although she was trying to push herself up onto her elbows.

It did not require another order for the Doctor to quickly scramble back up to his hands and knees. "Sorry, Sarah. Are you all right?", he apologized rather briefly before looking around the room for a clue to what had just happened to them. Neither her cheeky remark nor her state of health really interested him, but the cause of the crash. Almost instantly, a frown of worry appeared on his face.

"Yes, I am, thank you. But what was _THAT_?", Sarah demanded to know.  
She finally managed to sit up, but at the same time, she could feel distinctly a series of smaller shocks running through the TARDIS. It was as if the machine herself was shivering. With eyes full of frightened concern she looked up to the room's ceiling. A noise just began to ring out which sounded like the big bell of a church tower.

In that moment, the Doctor halted his rushed attempts of freeing his feet from the roller skates and looked up as well. But his face showed more than plain worry now; His wide eyes and a gasp suggested a deeper kind of fright that had taken a hold of him. "The cloister bell!", he exclaimed breathless, almost as if he had not wanted to speak it out loud. With just one foot free of the wheels which had brought about his fall, he unsteadily pulled himself back up by the railing and swayed over to the console.

Sarah frowned, but there was also confusion mixing back into her expression. "A cloister bell? What good is a cloister bell inside a time machine?" Unlike the Doctor, she allowed herself the proper amount of time needed to untie the laces of her roller skates. She was not keen on stumbling or falling again, especially so if they were heading into a dangerous situation.

"The cloister bell is the worst kind of alarm that can ring inside a TARDIS.", she heard him explain gravely. "It means that either the TARDIS itself, we, or the universe are in great danger! It means **impending doom**!" All the cheerfulness was now gone from his voice, wiped wholly by the meaning of the alarm, and replaced with great seriousness and a mild panic underneath.

When Sarah finally got back up on her feet and joined the Doctor, he had opened up all the wooden covers of the TARDIS' control stand. Another shock ran through the ship that felt to Sarah too much as if the machine was convulsing under the force of some mechanical illness.

"I don't know how yet, but something has hit her right at the centre. The link to the Eye of Harmony is failing." uttered the Doctor out of gritted teeth. He was holding onto the console tightly and after the next shock, which turned out slightly more violent, Sarah wrapped her arms back around the railing in hopes not to be thrown off her feet again. With her limited understanding of this technology, she had no idea what he was talking about, but knowing very well that the TARDIS had proven to be practically impenetrable so far, things looked pretty serious.  
"Come on, old girl! Hold on for me, just a little while longer!", the Doctor ordered.

Almost out of instinct, Sarah replied: " _I_ _AM_ holding on!"

"I wasn't talking to you, Sarah!" He harshly corrected her and went around the console to man another set of controls. "This won't do, I will have to drop us out of the time vortex now. We can only hope that we end up some place where the environment is not too hostile…!" With a flick of a switch, the TARDIS' wheezing and whooshing sounds filled the empty corridors and rooms inside.

"Or _**some time**_.", Sarah added quietly for herself and secretly hoped for anything but a snow-capped planet inhabited by cannibals and deadly wildlife.

The TARDIS had not finished her process of landing yet, when the lights in the ceiling began to flicker. There was a rumbling sound as the time machine touched down and as Sarah turned her head to look at him, the Doctor was flicking another switch to dim the lights in the space craft.

She looked around the room with wide eyes, frightened by the change of atmosphere. "Doctor…?" This time she did not even formulate the whole of her question. He just had to know that she was confused about what was going on and needed to know how bad things really were. Once an absolute minimum of light was left inside of the TARDIS, the last ringing of the cloister bell finally faded away.

"I've shut down most of the systems to preserve power until I can locate and fix the damage. We might just be able to make another jump, but it won't be far and it won't be stable, so I would prefer not try our luck if it is not really necessary." explained the Doctor and limped, with one roller skate still on a foot, over to the staircase leading outside. Annoyed by his inability to move faster, he forcefully pulled the shoe off. In the balancing act of removing it, he almost fell again, but caught himself just in time to make it safely to the door.  
"Let's see how far we made it then, shall we?", he called out to Sarah, who followed him immediately. Presumably because he did not want to get his socks dirty, the Doctor took a hold on the door frame and leaned outside as far as he could.

Beyond the TARDIS' doors laid dark green meadows, which stretched towards the horizon underneath an overcast, greyish sky. Cool air was swept into the time machine by a breeze that smelled like salt and felt humid to the skin. The cry of seagulls was heard from overhead. Eventually, Sarah pushed herself into the space between the Doctor and the open door of the police box to get a better look at their new surroundings. In the distance, the meadows stopped short of a steep cliff, revealing a dark blue and greenish sea beyond.

The dismal look of the landscape was almost too familiar.

The Doctor held a finger into the breeze to measure the direction the wind was coming from, then licked it afterwards – opposed to doing it the other way around. If there was anything to taste, then it was probably the salt. "Aha. The coast of Cornwall!", he declared with a light smile and a quick shrug. "It's not the Louvre and it's not UNIT either, but given the circumstances, this is just as good!"

At the same time, his companion just sighed in relief. Good, old Britain at last! She took in some more of that seaside air while she was peeking out, but the Doctor already headed back to the console.

"Still, we shan't be long.", he announced and rubbed his hands clean in the wool of his scarf. "We will be sitting ducks here as long as the TARDIS' defences remain lowered."

 _Their worries just never ended, did they?_ Reluctantly, Sarah followed him back inside. "I always thought the TARDIS was impenetrable.", she told her friend and joined him back at the console. "How could something like that happen? It's not a late gift from our adversary on Skania, is it?"

"It's funny that you mention it." The Doctor turned back to face her, but he could not keep looking at her for long until his eyes began to wander just like his thoughts. "A focused beam of light through Etabonite is one of the few things known to be capable of bypassing TARDIS' outer defences and damaging the conducting paths directly. But to use it for this purpose would be entirely pointless. It takes another time machine to follow us into the vortex, and even then, it's a much more efficient weapon when used with Abraxian energy compression. The amount of Etabonite available on Skania would have sufficed for a single shot at most…"

 _"A single shot was all that was needed."_


	2. The Master's Vengeance (Ep1)

Surprised by the sound of a third voice joining the conversation, Sarah turned back towards the TARDIS' exit. What she saw there filled her with such a dread that this time around, she could have sworn her heart had skipped a few beats. She opened her mouth in shock, but could not bring herself to breathe in the air.

On slightly unsteady legs walked into the TARDIS, the personification of Death himself: The broken figure of a man with a face scarred and burnt beyond recognition and a body mostly hidden underneath a thick layer of black, tattered robes. Whatever had happened to him had left him with so little facial features that his head was more of a skull. Teeth defined the edges of his mouth and the eyes bulged out of their sockets. The seemingly skinless fingers of his right hand twisted around the handle of some kind of gun which he pointed at the two time travellers.

Sarah had seen a lot of monstrous figures already, but this was the one to top even the gruesome new body of Morbius. Her mouth opened wider to let out a scream of terror, but there was not enough air in her lungs to actually get it out. She made an attempt to retreat backwards, which caused her only to bump into the Doctor. Thankfully however, that action helped both of them to snap out of their first moment of shock. They exchanged a glance of worry before turning back to face the horrible sight of their intruder.

"It's you.", the Doctor eventually stated. His expression was stern and his dry voice showed only the smallest amount of hatred this time, but it was more than enough for Sarah to understand who he was talking of:

The Master.

"Yes, Doctor: It's me. And this is what I have become, thanks to you.", the broken creature of a man confirmed. There was a bit of twitching around his eyes and the human wondered if it was painful for him to try to form an expression. He suddenly raised his arms, clenched his fists furiously and shouted out: **"Look at me now! This is all your fault!"** His raspy, half-muffled voice sounded even worse when it was this loud and this angry.

A shiver ran down the young woman's spine.

The Doctor shook his head vehemently and Sarah noticed how he pressed himself further against the console sitting in his back. " **No!** This was _**not**_ my fault! If you would have given up there and then, this would have never happened to you.", he defended himself, although it seemed very doubtful that the Master was up for any discussion. "Besides, I was expecting you to regenerate-"

"But I could not.", the Master almost interrupted him. "My regeneration cycle has already been exhausted. I am forced to cling onto what little life I have left…!"

"...Ah! I see..."  
The Doctor's grip on the console eased a little, now that it became a little clearer what was going on. During their previous adventure, the Master had been after the Etabonite mineral they had been talking of earlier, by the use of which he could have held an entire galaxy at ransom. Naturally, Sarah and her friend had prevented that from happening, but at a great cost for the Master. He had ended up in a horrible crash between two futuristic hovercrafts, and they, heroes of the day that they had been, and thinking that their enemy would suffer from post-regeneration trauma, had decided that it was not necessary to double-check that the Master would never get his hands on the Etabonite again. But apparently things had not played out the way they had expected them to: It seemed the Master had not allowed himself to be set back by his extensive injuries and agony, stolen the Etabonite after all, and now he was back for revenge.

"Now, since you are the one responsible for my suffering, I decided that I should relieve you of one of your regenerations.", the Master continued to explain and he chuckled between the sentences. His laugh sounded more like coughing. "Lucky for you, I currently lack the right tools and will not be able to gain any other benefits from the end of your current incarnation other than to watch you die painfully..."

The Doctor's facade slowly began to crumble and Sarah could now see the first signs of fear shimmering in his eyes. Only a light frown revealed to her that he was still thinking about a possible way out of their dilemma.  
Sarah, for her part, was truly afraid now. The Master, as a Time Lord, seemed to know very well how to cause pain and suffering to one of his kind, especially in regard to the fact that a regeneration was always preluded by both. The mere thought that her best friend could be exposed to such only a few months or years – time was very hard to tell in the TARDIS – after his near death at Metebelis III, scared her greatly. He enjoyed being a scatter-brained, middle-aged globetrotter with childlike humour, and he deserved more time to stay like this. She clutched the Doctor's arm with both hands, desperately wanting to protect him, although the best she could do right now was to pull him out of the way if the Master was to pull the trigger on his gun.

The Doctor shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye to acknowledge her crude attempt of saving him, but did not comment on it. "So, if that is what you are _**not**_ going to do, what will be your revenge, then?", he then demanded to know of the Master, "Have you come to finally destroy me, like all the other times you had planned for it?"

"You will fail this time, too!", barked Sarah at their arch enemy from her position, half-hidden behind the Doctor.

But the Master simply ignored her insolent comment. "No, Doctor.", he answered to the other Time Lord instead. "If death is too good for me, then it is too good for you, too." Before he continued his explanation, he pulled out of one of the many folds on his robe a brass fob watch and let it dangle by its chain for everyone to see. Along the surface of the casing ran a crack and there was a dent in it as well. "Instead, I have brought this."

The Doctor squinted his eyes to make out the object. "Is that… part of a chameleon arch?", he asked – not quite what Sarah would have expected him to say – but then he realized something and whereas the fright had been just a notion in his eyes before, his companion could see it plainly now.  
"Oh, I see…!", her tall friend gasped and pointed at the dangling watch. "Well, I hope you've noticed that because it is damaged, anything might happen! It might not work. It might work too good. I might be killed. Or, I could… end up somewhere in between." He was not usually one to hesitate with words, but this last possibility seemed so bad that it took a while before he had uttered the last bits of his sentence.

"Doctor, what is that? What does he want with you?", she tugged at his sleeve and demanded to know.

Just as the Doctor turned to look at the young woman by his side, the Master raised his voice again.

"That's right, Doctor. Anything can happen, but whatever will, it will leave you handicapped in some way or another. Just like me...", he explained, which only stirred Sarah's worries further, before he proceeded to point his gun at her.  
" **Now! Get out of the way, Miss Smith!"** , he threatened her, **"This is a matter between him and me only, and if you interfere, rest assured that I will annihilate you myself this time!"**

The Doctor turned sideways, which forced Sarah out of her hiding and as he placed his hands on her shoulders, she let go of his sleeve as well. Although his eyes still showed a great deal of worry, he attempted to speak to her with determination in his voice. "Sarah, I think it's better if you stepped off the TARDIS while he still allows you to."

"And leave you as a victim of his? Are you out of your mind?", Sarah stared at him unbelieving of what she had just heard.

"Sarah, please!", her friend urged her and shook her lightly. "I just might make it out alive and well, but if you stay, you will force his hand."

Sarah's voice was cracking as she replied, almost hysterical.  
"You _**might**_ _ **make it**_?!"

In order not to push her further into panic, the Doctor tried pleading instead.  
"I beg of you, for your sake and mine." He bent his knees to match her eye level, like he was talking to a child.

Sarah stared into his big blue eyes for what felt like a small eternity, just trying to figure out what was wrong and why she could not try to stay and help him. There had to be some kind of plan, right? Some idea, how she could make it back to save him at the last second. He would not just send her away if he had none… But then why did he look so sorry? " _Can't you think of something, Doctor?_ _Or have you already?_ _"_ , Sarah begged in her thoughts. With the Master watching them, even if he had some complex plan, he would not have been able to tell her. And whereas most of the time, she could read the Doctor's face like an open book, when it came to his plans, there was no way of predicting when the right thought was going to hit him or whether an idea he already had would settle. Oh, she just wished she knew!

"All right now, that was more than enough time for a farewell." The Master's voice cut into their silent conversation, urging them to hurry as he gestured with his gun for Sarah to step aside.

Reluctantly accepting the order, the Doctor sighed as he lifted himself back up to full height.  
To Sarah's surprise, he turned her around by her shoulders and, with fairly little force, pushed her a few feet away from him. "Go now, Sarah!"

She glanced back over her shoulder, perplexed, and the feeling of worry stuck in her throat like a big lump.

But he averted his look quickly and lowered his head to hide his eyes in the shadow his unruly curls cast into his face. **"Go!"** , he repeated his words, but with a lot more of a commanding tone this time, marking them as final.

Internally, Sarah begged that it was all just an act. She glared at the Master angrily as she stepped out of the inner railing and moved further towards the time machine's exit. At the same time, their enemy carefully moved closer to the room's centre, always making sure that both the Doctor and she remained in his field of view, although his gun was pointed only at her.  
He urged the Doctor to back away from the console, so that he could operate the TARDIS' instead of its owner. The Master pulled the lever which opened the TARDIS' doors, and as Sarah continued walking towards the exit ever so slowly, reluctantly, he flicked another set of switches.  
When Sarah stopped in front of the open door, the Master waved the gun at her.  
" **Out! Now!"** , he shouted with this horribly distorted voice of his.

She would not let him out of sight, she swore to herself as she took two steps out of the TARDIS and into the open. The coldness of the wet grass was immediately soaked up by her socks and the wind outside felt just as icy as her hatred towards the Master for whatever he was about to do.  
"Are you happy now?", she turned around and sullenly asked their arch enemy, averse to move away further unless she was threatened into doing so.

"Not quite, no.", was the answer of the disfigured Time Lord. He was still pointing the gun at her. What for? She was already far out of the way, was she not? All he had to do was to close the doors!

"Would you prefer me back inside, then?", Sarah kept asking impatiently. "A little to the right; to the left maybe? **What do you want!?** "

Even though he still avoided the eye contact, she noticed the Doctor smiling at her fearless outburst in front of the villain. Between him and the Master a strange-looking piece of head gear lowered out of the ceiling of the TARDIS. It hung from a mechanical arm coated in brass, and was wired up with dozens of cables originating from the inside of the time machine. At the front of the head gear, the place where it would cover one's forehead, was a circular, empty space, into which the Master pressed the fob watch he had showed to them earlier. Sarah could see the crack in the little clock even from afar. A soft glow was emitted from it.

With her heart beating ever so slightly louder, she continued to watch as the Master pushed the metal arm into the Doctor's direction. He had made well sure to keep his adversary far away from interfering with the controls. "Doctor, if you will.", he ordered the other time traveller and nodded into Sarah's direction before explaining, "And no funny tricks this time, or I will ensure personally that you will have the chance to watch your companion leave your company the painful way."

Sarah gritted her teeth. So she was still good for blackmailing, was she? **"** **Don't do it, Doctor! Don't listen to him!"** , she called out, but her friend was not listening to her. Although every single movement of his proved that he was fighting internally with the unwillingness to obey, he stepped closer to the device. With a menacing look of disgust and hatred directed at the Master, he pulled the head gear over his mob of curly hair. In an almost hopeless attempt of looking unafraid he shoved his hands into the pockets of his tweed trousers. Sarah noticed him saying something to the Master after he had turned his face away from him again, but he said it so quietly that she failed to make out the words.

Whether it was because of what the Doctor had said or not, the Master pulled a lever on the console and the TARDIS' doors began to close in front of Sarah. Instinctively, she attempted to step back into the ship right away, but when her gaze was met with the sight of a gun's muzzle, she quickly went back on that decision and stayed outside.

The automatic closing of the TARDIS' doors was a rather slow process and since she was forced to wait, Sarah saw the Doctor raising his head and looking over to her one last time. Single curls were sticking out of the contraption on his head in every direction. He knitted his brows and, at the same time, attempted to form a smile for her, but failed somewhere on the way. She just knew too well what his kind of grin had to look like.

" **Don't worry, Sarah!"** , he shouted over to her, **"Remember how little energy is left! He won't make it far!"**

The TARDIS doors kept closing. Already the crack was too small for a human to fit through.  
Sarah saw the Master throwing a leverand in the very last second before eventually even the crack had closed in front of her, Sarah's ears were filled with the scream of her best friend.

" **AAARGH!"**


	3. UNIT To The Rescue (Ep1)

It was not like any other time the Doctor had suffered pain before. This was pure agony she was experiencing on a second-hand basis, through his scream. Already she could feel the sound etching itself into her memory to cause a stinging to her heart for minutes, hours, days or weeks to come.  
Sarah threw herself at the door, tore at the handles of the police box and pounded at the windows with all of her strength. **"** **Doctor!"** , she yelled at the top of her lungs, **"DOCTOR!"**

But for a response, all that she got was the whooshing and wheezing of the TARDIS. The sound was moving back and forth – ellipsing, as the Doctor once described it – which caused it to appear all wrong. Even his trusty time machine was rejecting the Master's orders as it seemed, although what Sarah heard might have just been a side effect of the damages.

The door handles slipped through her hands. Blue paint and the wood beneath turned invisible and beyond the police box, a small village appeared in the distance.  
" **DOCTOR!"** , Sarah shouted still. **"No! NO! NO!** **COME BACK AT ONCE!** **"**

She would not let the Master have things his way. Not as long as she was around. But what could she do? The TARDIS disappeared before her eyes, and was just gone. All that was left was an imprint in the soft grass to attest that the time machine had ever been there.

Defiantly, Sarah decided that they were not beaten yet. There, just a mile or so away laid a village. She could phone up the Brigadier and get UNIT to help. If she was unable to find the TARDIS by herself, then with combined forces they would be able to track it down!

Holding onto that thought with all of her will, she began to run towards the houses. The cold weather and her wet feet did not matter at a time when Sarah Jane had to save Earth's greatest hero.

After running for minutes and minutes, a panting young woman finally made it to the village. But just as she arrived at to the first house she could get to, a farm house, it became quickly apparent to her that – once again – the Doctor had misjudged their current location. This was not Cornwall! This was France! Some tiny village inhabited by more cows than people, hopefully anywhere near Calais at least – but Sarah had yet to ask the locals. Which she had to do with her best, almost non-existent French skills, of course.

She eventually ended up playing charades with the farm owner in order to get her request across, and somehow managed to get his allowance to use his telephone, from which she then contacted UNIT headquarters. With a lot of nervous stammering and hasty explanations, she gave Brigadier Lethbridge-Steward the most important key points to what had just happened: That the Master had invaded the TARDIS and went off with the Doctor in captivity, possibly to destroy him.

Although the young reporter emphasised that he had to act with the greatest of haste, the Brigadier remained relatively calm. He had to, because he was a military leader, but Sarah was not sure that he quite understood the situation in the same way as she did. In her head, she could still hear the echo of the Doctor's scream and she was terrified by all the implications. Only once the Brigadier had assured her that he would assemble a search party right away and that he would sent someone to pick her up from her undesired landing point, Sarah felt a slight relief. But her best comfort right now were still the last words of her lost friend. He had said that the Master would not make it far, because of the power failure; Because the TARDIS was damaged. A search party would be able to find him then, surely. There was plenty of hope to cling on to, Sarah reminded herself.

After several hours of nervous waiting at the farmer's house, the UNIT helicopter finally arrived. It was a small one, if not the one which was owned by the Brigadier privately. As Sarah ran out to meet the two-man crew, she was greeted by a familiar face, namely the face of the recently promoted Warrant Officer John Benton – or just Benton, as everyone called him.

When she asked him what he was doing here, in the sense of why he would have volunteered to fly out and get her, Benton told her the following: "Well, Miss.", he had said with a smile, "The Brig reckoned you would like someone to talk to, so he tried to ring up Lieutenant Sullivan. But Sullivan's still in Devesham at the Space Defence Station, see? So he got me instead. I hope that's all right with you, Miss."

"Harry or not; I'm still glad to see you.", she had answered. It was just so good to know that she was back home – on Earth, in the 1970s – after god knows how long she had been lost in time and space with only the Doctor for company. After a short and polite good-bye to the French farmer, they set off for the UNIT headquarters near London. The flight was not pleasant, but mind you, it was more pleasant than some of the other rides Sarah had been a passenger on during her travels. At least, since Benton was with her, she could attempt to get some of her worries off her mind. Through the internal communication in the helicopter, Sarah attempted to discuss with him the Brigadier's strategy of finding the Doctor.

However, at some point, Benton argued that the Brigadier's search party had a small chance of success only, because the Doctor's craft did not only move through space, but through time as well. It could end up anywhere, any time. And UNIT's forces – even if you counted the ones not stationed in England – were not enough to search the entire planet, even less so if they had to look into the past and the future as well.

Sarah realized that he was not entirely wrong; Almost every time the Doctor had landed them in the wrong place at the wrong time, he had called it a slight overshoot – because he made such understatements on a regular basis. So what had he meant when he said that the Master would not make it " _far"_? Just how far was that? Miles? Light years? Decades, Aeons? Honestly, she did not know. But the conversation with Benton only encouraged her to find better reasons for her hope to cling on to. The past was not unknown to them, because a lot of it was written in history and the Doctor left traces where ever he went, as small as they might be. And although it was true that UNIT could not cover an entire planet, well, maybe they might not need to, either. If they could just spread the word and tell everyone to keep an eye out, someone was bound to notice, right?. And as for the future, that happened all by itself and as long as they would not give up to look for their favourite alien on Earth, they would find him. One day.

"Oh, I do hope you're right, Miss Smith.", Benton had agreed then, after her long-winded explanation of possible solutions. "But rest assured that we will all give our best efforts to find him. For all I know, Earth would not be around any more if it wasn't for the Doc." That was true. So very true. UNIT was there to do just that, to protect the Earth from alien threats. But there was just no professional like the Doctor.

By the time Sarah Jane made it back to the London HQ, she was not feeling quite as frightened any more thanks to the consolation of Benton's words. Maybe he was but a simple solider, but his heart was in the right place. One thing she could not say about most military types. And even though the Brigadier was a friend of hers, his stuck up, logical attitude had made her cross on more than one occasion. Luckily, however, not today.

Once Sarah had delivered a full and detailed description of how the Master had invaded the TARDIS and left her stranded on the French coast, the Brigadier's reaction was just the same as Benton's. Although he agreed with her that they should do everything in their power to help the man they owed so much, he was sceptical about the success of this operation. "Has it ever occurred to you, Miss Smith, that he might force the Doctor to regenerate after all?", he had asked Sarah with a heavy sigh, "How shall we foresee who or what he will turn into this time?"

"Well, if he has regenerated, he will find us by himself sooner or later! He ought to have learned by now that the people at UNIT are his friends!", she had claimed, and then continued to explain her own strategy just like she had thought it up and presented it to Benton earlier. And after all, the Brigadier's scepticism was not great enough for him to disagree with her. Even though it might not have always been a particularly deep friendship that had connected him and the Doctor, the military leader was just as obliged to do everything he could to find and save him as was Sarah.

Together they decided, apart from the search party, to assemble a team of journalists to hit the archive records, newspaper clippings, and just about anything that could reveal to them not only the present, but the past as well. Naturally, Sarah-Jane would be part of this team of journalists. No one was better fitted to cover England than she was, and finally, her connections to the big publishing houses would come in handy again, too...


	4. Hello, Old Thing! (Ep1)

==== ==== Harry Sullivan ==== ====

On the same day wandered through the corridors at UNIT HQ a man in his early Thirties, dressed in a navy blue buttoned jacket and light grey trousers, with an overall very well-groomed appearance. He had curly, dark brown hair, but unlike the Doctor's, his was a lot shorter and saw a brush regularly, which made it effectively less curly. That dapper gentleman was Harry Sullivan, a Royal Navy Surgeon-Lieutenant, who had been working for UNIT for a considerable amount of time now.

He had just been called back from the Space Defence Station in Devesham to meet the Brigadier and an old friend of his at the headquarters. There was not much his superior had told him on the phone, yet the most important thing he had gathered was that Sarah Jane and the Doctor had found a bit of time to stop by on Earth again – an occurrence which happened less frequently than one would expect of a bunch of time travellers. But Harry knew how it was, since he had been a part of the team once. When he had finally returned from his trip to thirty-thousand years in the future, a whole year had passed on Earth in his absence. A simple _'Yes'_ to the Doctor, and he could have continued down this path, to explore and to experience things beyond most people's imagination – but Harry did not consider himself the right kind of person to live so dangerously, especially with the eternal uncertainty whether they would return home or not. He liked to have some regularity in his life. Working for UNIT alone could be quite exciting in its own right, without the additional alien monsters and confusion in time, and at least they let him go home after closing time.

Something else the Brigadier had told him during his call was that something bad was brewing. What exactly, he had not been able to explain to him in the short amount of time available, but it most certainly had something to do with the medical officer's far-travelled friends. _'Of course it would.'_ , Harry had thought to himself. _'Where there's the Doctor, trouble's never far.'_ Whether the trouble followed him or he was following the trouble, either of which could apply.

Harry took a turn on his way to the Brigadier's office and politely greeted a soldier passing him by. Although he knew that he was far too late to make it to the meeting, he had to start somewhere. More specifically, he had to ask his superior what was really going on. As he walked past the corner, he noticed a woman standing in front of the office door, who was looking the other way and apparently waiting for someone. She wore a green military jacket on top of a jumper and a pair of heavy soldier's boots on her feet, which were clearly two sizes too big for her. The mud covered edges of her trousers and unkempt hair made it seem like she had been fighting wet grass and cold winds for some time before someone had finally brought her into the warmth of a house. Even so, Harry recognized her immediately.

"Hello, old girl!", he greeted Sarah as he approached the door she was standing in front of. A feeling of gladness swept his body just knowing it was her. He had missed her a little, like he always had when she was away. She was wonderful company; despite her young age full of stories to tell, and he admired her readiness of mind, as did so many others who had met her. Only knowing that the Doctor kept an eye on her – and she on him for that matter – helped Harry not to miss her as much.

She jerked her head around, startled by the sound of his voice, and the officer's eyes met hers. Her expression showed not only the joyful surprise to see him, but also something else… something sadder he had not quite figured out yet.  
"Harry!", she called his name and came running towards him. "Oh, am I glad to see you!"

It was not simply a common phrase that she uttered. Before he had found the words to reply something, she gave him a tight hug. Only then the medical officer finally understood what that other notion was which he had discovered in her gaze. It was like a part of her emotions had just washed over his mind. "What's happened, Sarah? You seem a little distressed…", the medical officer asked. His smile was accompanied by a confused, worried frown while he returned the gesture.

Sarah stepped back to look into his face again and sighed heavily. "The Doctor and his TARDIS were just taken captive by his arch enemy… he left me stranded on the French coast. The consequences could be disastrous; We have to find them!", she explained as quickly as she could, but a little too quick for Harry's taste.

"His arch enemy?", he looked at her wide-eyed. The Doctor had never mentioned one in front of him, so he was left guessing. "… You mean the creator of the Daleks...?"

Whatever he had done now, he had no idea, but Sarah rolled her eyes at him, annoyed. "You still haven't looked into the Doctor's old UNIT files, have you?"

Obviously, he had not. "Uhm..." Harry tried to think of an excuse, but failed to come up with something plausible in the time she gave him before she just continued.

"I'm speaking of the Master, Harry! He's a Time Lord, too, but unlike the Doctor, he's downright evil. Mad, you would say!" The pretty woman was getting quite upset as she spoke. Just the thought of the man seemed to cause some of her distress. "You see, he's tried to destroy both the Earth and the Doctor several times already. And that's not all! Apparently, he wants to control as much of the universe as he can."

"Isn't there an intergalactic police force of some kind to deal with these cases? I mean, the Time Lords can't expect the Doctor to clean up the messes their criminals cause on top of everything, can they...?", suggested Harry after a moment of thinking.

Sarah blinked at him surprised. "That's actually a good question...", she just replied. "Anyway… The Doctor and I, we foiled one of the Master's plans on this faraway planet, but due to our involvement, the Master was also severely wounded. For some reason, he cannot regenerate and is now stuck in this... horrible state..." By the look of her face and her hesitation, she wanted to give a more detailed description, but could not do it. It was too horrible for her to find the right words. "He forced us to crash-land on Earth and then invaded the TARDIS to have his revenge on the Doctor..."

As she stopped talking, Harry noticed her staring into space. It had happened from one moment to another as though a memory had taken hold of her world of thought. The medical officer waved a hand in front of her eyes to help her snap out of it. "So he dropped you off to make sure you cannot interfere?"

She blinked disoriented, but quickly found his face to look at again. "… He said something about death being too good for the Doctor, and something about leaving him impaired." And something about the implications were disturbing enough to cause her to avert her gaze yet again.

"Sounds like the Master is a nasty piece of work...", stated Harry and frowned at her worriedly. Slowly, he began to understand what kind of situation she had escaped from. It was little surprising that she would be seeking the help of UNIT. They could not just let this Master torture their friend. It was their obligation to safe him from it now, just like he had saved them from harm and suffering so many times before! But how? "...What do you suppose he will do to the Doctor?"

"I think he wants him to suffer through the same agony as he has. Whether that's emotional, or physical… Actually, I don't want to imagine it. I just want him safe.", admitted Sarah without lifting her gaze off the floor.

Harry felt awkward not knowing what to say right away. For a moment, he could have stared at the old coffee stain on the floor tiles with her. She had said that the two Time Lords had vanished together with the time machine… and where would that end them up, then? If he could have, he would have taken her and they would have driven together after them immediately… but like this, it was not possible. Not as easily, anyway. As the medical officer glanced at her face, her eyes half-hidden behind a few loose strands of hair because she was holding her head so low, the sympathy inside of him forbid it to say anything but words of optimism and hope. "Well..", Harry dragged out the word and chuckled sheepishly, "… he spent more time in deep water than a trawler. Presumably, he will make it back onto dry land this time as well – and then he'll laugh at our crude attempts of saving him."

Eventually, Sarah looked back up. On her lips was a weak smile, not entirely convinced, but better than nothing. "There is one hope...", she revealed to him, "The Doctor said that the TARDIS was too damaged to make it far. I believe he wanted to tell me that the Master would not be able to leave the planet with him."

"Oh… so… we know where they are, then? Somewhere on this planet…?" Only once he had spoken it, Harry noticed that this information improved the situation only marginally. The Earth was still… pretty large.

"I've already discussed the matter with the Brigadier, and we will give our best efforts to find him, anyway.", continued the time travelling woman. "Actually, he's given me an office room I can use to read through archive records. You know, to find out whether the TARDIS has landed somewhere in the past…?"

"Ah yes, the past. Good thinking.", nodded Harry. His friend had most certainly gotten more used to thinking in _'the fourth dimension'_ as he had. Once he had processed what she was about to do, he figured he could at least offer a helping hand. "You don't need someone to carry boxes and push furniture, do you?"

Finally, Sarah smiled a little wider at him. "Not necessarily, but you can still come along if you like." She cocked her head teasingly. "My office's barely wider than a broom closet, but it's got a window."

"A window! That's more than I can say for mine!", chuckled Harry.

She turned to walk away, but waved for him to follow. "Come, I show you."

But just as Harry meant to do that, the door to the Brigadier's office opened behind him, and his superior stepped out.  
"Ah, Sullivan! There you are at last! What kept you?"

Puzzled, the medical officer glanced back and forth between the two. He would have favoured to go with Sarah, but now that he had been discovered, he had to respond to his duties. His sense of responsibility forbid him otherwise. "Brigadier! I, uhm..", he stammered.

"Never mind. Come into my office. I have important matters to discuss with you.", the Brigadier cut him off. His attitude and strict tone of voice demanded respect, and so Harry turned to Sarah with a helpless shrug.

"Sorry, old girl. I'll find you later, promised."

He really should have expected that the Brigadier had not merely called him in to meet Sarah. His superior's rank was too important to allow him the reassignment of subordinates for reasons as trivial to the military as friendship. The Brigadier enlisted Harry to help with the search party in Northern France and so, before the Royal Navy officer had a chance to protest, he found himself sitting in a helicopter, unable to keep his promise to Sarah. At least not within the same day.

Eventually, two days later, Harry found his way back to the HQ again, but the circumstances under which he met Sarah this time were not as pleasing as the one before. Not only had his search party failed to find any other trace of the TARDIS except a single sighting of its departure in Northern France, but he had to discover on his return that his poor girl had been working in the meantime without a break, without sleep and without any self-regard.

She sat in her new, broom-closet-wide office over stacks of newspapers and UNIT files, with dark shadows underneath her tired eyes and had greeted her friend with a smile so feeble it could have fallen apart at the first wrong word. Although she was still working like a mad woman, her drowsiness made it impossible for her to accomplish anything by the time he had arrived. That, Harry had found out by simply looking through some of her _'work'_ – all of her newspaper clippings that were so completely irrelevant to the case and yet her sleepy mind had seen some connection to the Doctor in them that was clearly not there.

"Listen, old girl, you shouldn't work yourself to perdition... It's not what the Doctor would have wanted.", Harry tried to tell her. He had always known her to be someone who could become very devoted to a cause, but this was going too far. This time, he had to intervene. "Why do you continue?", Harry asked her sympathetically. "Would it be of any use if I ordered you to rest?"

Tired, and rather unwilling to answer, Sarah supported her head with an arm that was propped on the desk. The light from the setting sun shining in through the window and the exposed light bulb dangling over her head put her face into a strange, gloomy light. "I can't rest, Harry. It's just that..." She took a deep breath as her eyes threatened to fall shut and then tried again. "It's that, I just can't. The Doctor's in grave danger and..."

It was very obvious to the medical officer that she had trouble to form a coherent thought, but it was not difficult to guess where her sentence was going. "So? He has been in grave danger plenty of times. With us; Without us. You know he'll manage." As she sighed in lack of a response, he made an addition. "You ought to know that better than most. Better than me, certainly."

"But, I..."

Harry cut into her sentence before he had to listen to another half-hearted argument. "You, my dear thing, need sleep, and quite a lot of it, too, by the look of you." By now, he could feel distinctly that there was something she was not telling him. It was illogical for her not to agree to the things already he had told her.

"I can't sleep, Harry.", she then finally admitted and sighed once more "Every time I try to close my eyes, I see them… I hear him scream, the Master laughing, and the TARDIS' vanishing..." Looking at her with both great concern and pity in his eyes, Harry watched as she pressed both of her palms onto her eyes, which – no doubt – must have been hurting from staring at black and white texts for so long. Sarah took a shivering breath. "If only I could have done something..!"

"Sarah, it's all right. I'm sure you did all you could." He quickly laid an arm around her shoulder to comfort her before she was crumbling to the image in her mind altogether. Right now, he was a lot more aware of what sleep deprivation had already done to her than she was. No wonder everything seemed twice as horrible. "Besides, it's just a memory now, it's not the present.", Harry reminded her and sought the look into her eyes to regain her attention. "Here, I'll tell you something. Remember when I stopped travelling with the two of you? I was abducted by Zygons before, right? They used me as a body print and one of them posed as me..."

Finally, Sarah looked back up to listen to him. She nodded slowly, because she remembered, and Harry continued.

"I had night terrors for weeks afterwards. Counted all the sheep twice and still couldn't sleep a bit.", he admitted to her. Out of all the horrible foes he had faced, it was the Zygons which had haunted him the most. Daleks and Cybermen; those were at least metal, and the Wirrn stopped being scary anyone after he had dissected one, but slimy underwater creatures with fangs and suckers… No, thank you very much! He'd rather take his chances with the death ray. "I ended up looking just like you at one point."

"Is that true?"

Harry nodded. In her current state of mind, she might have believed anything, but, good friend that he was, he had no intention or need to take advantage of it. "Listen, I'll prescribe you a homoeopathic barbiturate. It's harmless for your health and will give you a dreamless sleep."

A light smile played about Sarah's lips, but then she pressed a hand against her forehead as if to stifle a headache.

"Uh, I'm craving for a night's worth of sleep…!", the young woman exclaimed.

"Well, there's no time like the present as they say." He offered her his elbow, so she could link her arm into his for support. "Here, let me escort you to the sick bay." Thankfully, she accepted his offer without questions and allowed him to find a comfortable place for her to lie down and to drift into sleep undisturbed. The medical officer waited a full hour nearby until he was completely certain that she was sleeping tightly before he, too, headed home.

However, he did so only with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. If she would be scared awake by a night terror, despite his best attempts, he knew he would not forgive himself for it. He might have stayed at UNIT for her sake, but Harry knew that nothing good would come out of it if he, too, began to work overtime. The only way to show Sarah not to worry was to take things a little less serious than she did. It was something he had realized in the long hour he had watched over her sleep...


	5. The TARDIS Sound Still Lingers (Ep1)

==== ==== Sarah-Jane Smith ==== ====

One and a half weeks later: Still no trace of the Doctor or the bigger-on-the-inside police box.

Thanks to Harry keeping her in line, she was feeling much better now than during the early days of their still fruitless search. She even had begun to get used to the idea that the Doctor was gone. Not as in, _permanently_ , but she still hoped that maybe his TARDIS had just jumped forward in time and he had escaped the Master's plan all by himself.

But the inevitable was drawing closer now: One day, the Brigadier ordered Sarah and Harry into his office and announced to them that he had been forced to disband the search party. The head of a weapon manufacturing company had vanished without a trace and the government was concerned enough with the case to put UNIT on it. The three of them had a long discussion over the matter. Sarah tried her best to get the Brigadier to countermand the order, but in the end she, too, had to to acknowledge that he was right. He could not continue to waste UNIT's forces on a task that was sheer impossible to achieve. They had already exhausted most, if not all, of their options. When the military leader revealed to Sarah the full history of his encounters with the Doctor, she began to realize that even if her time travelling friend was well, his return could never be certain. It was a thought she preferred not to keep on her mind, though...

Very reluctantly, Sarah stepped down from the argument. But even as she went, she took Harry with her to have a word in private. Since they were the last, and thus, best of friends currently left to the Doctor, they decided to keep trying a little longer, even without the Brigadier's permission. From that day on, the search became a two-man operation, partially next to the day-to-day business. Whenever the Brigadier saw them working on it, he let them, and he might even have participated himself, would he not have had other matters on his mind and the government in his back.

Another four days passed by, almost too quickly.

The Brigadier's latest case grew more important. More people had gone missing, and he wanted Harry to try his hand at playing a spy again. Before Sarah could do anything to prevent it, even her last effort to find the Doctor had been hamstrung by the authorities. Now that only she was left, Sarah eventually decided to give up, too. Maybe it was pointless after all. One day, she just had to stop worrying about the alien she had once considered her best friend.

So, the former time travelling woman did the only thing left for her to do: She reappeared on the doorstep of her aunt Lavinia. At first, Sarah had not planned to settle back into an ordinary life, but frequent talks with Harry just reassured her, that if the Doctor was ever to leave them behind – whatever the reason – he probably would have wanted her to carry on as if they had never met in the first place. She could only become unhappy if she continued to long for a life among the stars and planets, for the knowledge and stories that were beyond this world. Even if the Earth had wonders to compare, it would never be quite the same, she thought.

Her aunt was a great help to Sarah as she attempted to pick everyday business back up from where she had left it unexpectedly. Only now she really felt all the months that had passed since their last, almost accidental trip, back to Earth. It was difficult to explain it all and the journalist blamed most of it on some kind of top secret investigation she could not tell anyone about. For the time being, and since she had little other choice to begin with, Sarah moved back in with Lavinia at South Croydon, which made it feel even more like coming home than ever before. The comfort of knowing the woman who had raised her close by, sent her emotional state of mind halfway back into her childhood, and caused her to wander around the two-story house for a few days with little motivation to do anything. After all, her aunt took care of all the petty little problems for her.

Sarah was in a despondent mood, which only lightened up a bit when she talked to Harry on the phone or when she went out to meet him for lunch. Every once in a while, the young Earth woman managed to slip back into the boring normality, at the times she was busy with house duties, private accounting, grocery shopping, walking to the post office or riding the bus. But even so, she would often overhear people talking about their boring everyday businesses and thinking to herself how little they really knew about the world around them. She must have been blessed to have her eyes opened up to the greater wonders of the universe, but why did it feel like it was not enough?  
Why, she should be ashamed not to be satisfied with her life!  
It was easier when she was occupied with something and had less time to think about the things she missed so dearly.

Although she was back home now, she was still sleeping uneasy sometimes. No nightmares to deprive her of her sleep and she did not need Harry's prescription any more, either, but on some mornings Sarah would wake up with the feeling that something was still wrong and needed correcting... This feeling usually faded over breakfast.

Sarah was adjusting slowly, but even after a whole month had passed since her forced parting with the Doctor, she still found herself walking past every old, battered police box twice and hoping for a piece of colourful wool to disappear around the next corner. But these things only happened in her imagination: Of course there were no time machines, and there were also no tassels to chase after. Sarah pitied herself for it. Had she not been separated from the Doctor in the way it had happened, with all that worry and fear for his life firmly etched into her mind, she would not miss him as much. Or so she liked to think...

Over time, her aunt gave her more and more things to do during the day, and occasionally, she would point her niece towards interesting articles in the newspaper, hoping to get the spirit of an investigator sparking inside of her again. Reluctantly at first, but soon with growing motivation, Sarah finally renewed her connections to the editorial office of the Metropolitan and the Guardian.

But although she followed her aunt's advise and felt herself more and more comfortable again in her old role, Lavinia's curiosity about whatever had happened to her niece kept growing. Only naturally for the woman who had brought her up all by herself, she had to learn about it some time, to be able to stop herself from worrying about the young journalist's state of mind.

Sarah avoided the questions Lavinia asked for several consecutive days, but then made a total fool of herself on one particular occasion:

It had been early in the morning and Sarah had still been in the bathroom, blow-drying her hair as out of nowhere, a familiar noise filled her ears. The wheezing and groaning she had heard so many times before, and secretly still longed to hear again. Even though the pitch was a bit different, the image of the police box appeared in her mind immediately. Dropping the brush from her hand – and the blow-dryer almost, too – Sarah burst out of the room and ran downstairs with the hopeful expectation to find the TARDIS materializing before her eyes in the living room.

Of course, she should have known better… Her endlessly disappointed gaze fell on her aunt, who, armed with a cleaning cloth, was clearing the cobwebs out of the strings of an old harp. She had heard her niece storming down the staircase, and was now looking at her worried, asking what was the matter. "W-What is that?", Sarah stammered, as though she had never seen a harp before. But while Lavinia explained that a neighbour had asked her to store the large music instrument for safe-keeping at her house, Sarah was just amazed by how similar the noise had sounded. It helped nowhere to cure her of the sudden disappointment, however. Worse than that was just that she had failed to hide her reaction from Lavinia, who had all the right reasons now to ask her why she was behaving like that.

"I used to know someone who owned a machine that made such a noise.", Sarah had told her reluctantly, "He was a very close friend, and he vanished a while ago, right after a run-in with a criminal." She had almost been surprised to find that her aunt knew her so well that she had not needed to explain much more. Suddenly, Lavinia just understood what had caused the despondent mood of her niece. "But why didn't you tell me earlier?", she still had wanted to know.

"He knows so many secrets, and has travelled to the most extraordinary places of the world… He has always been fighting for the good cause, but made a lot of enemies along the way..." There was no point in trying to tell her the full story. Unless Lavinia had experienced the same things she had seen first-hand, she would never believe her, anyway. But Sarah's hesitantly formulated lie was thankfully enough to get her point across. Even her aunt realized that the Doctor must have been an incredibly fascinating fellow to meet. Although Sarah offered no further explanation, she seemed to have gained an understanding for how her niece was feeling. That she had been involved in things greater and more important than ordinary life, and that this had been how settling back in at home had become so difficult. But Lavinia also reminded her of the dangers that lurked within the unknown. Sarah had said it herself, that the Doctor had made himself powerful enemies – and might have fallen victim to one. As a responsible step-parent, Lavinia did not want her to end up in the same way, despite knowing her sister's daughter well-enough to see that Sarah would never turn down an opportunity to enter an unlocked door with a _"_ _K_ _eep_ _O_ _ut!"_ sign in front of it...


	6. A Professor By The Name Of Smith (Ep1)

About one month and another two weeks in, Sarah found herself looking forward to finally begin investigating the first story after her return. It was about a series of robberies in the London tube. She could have also taken UNIT's case of missing people, but she had chosen specifically to take a break from all the alien-related stuff in this world. In fact, she was almost excited to do something ordinary again when she joined her aunt in the kitchen for breakfast on the day of the investigation's first interview.

As always, there was today's newspaper lying on the table right next to Sarah's half-burnt toast. And while she contemplated her plans for today, she flipped through its black-and-white pages somewhat absent-mindedly, mostly out of the force of habit. Quite soon, she would be writing the articles again, the real interesting ones! Just a little while before she would have gotten up to leave the house, Sarah emptied her glass of milk and through the bottom of it, quite by chance, her sight fell on a picture in today's paper. It was nothing special, really. Just a black and white photograph of a group of students from the Amberton university that was slightly blurred by the quality of the print. But what she saw had almost caused her to drop the glass from her hands. Her mind was wiped blank by a thousand thoughts crashing into it at once and her interest in the robbery case was forgotten in the wink of an eye.  
"Not possible!", she exclaimed and hastily moved her dishes out of the way to unfold the newspaper page so she could get a better look at it.

"What is it, my dear?" Lavinia's words were too distant to reach Sarah's mind.

In the photograph stood assembled this small group of students celebrating the begin of a new semester and with them were a few of the university's professors as well. There was one of them, standing a little aside. In fact, he was barely in the picture, as if he had not meant to be in it at all. But it was a rather tall man in a suit, who stood relaxed near a column, with his hands in his pockets. He had a mob of fluffy looking, dark curly hair and was laughing in the general direction of the camera. This toothy grin and the wrinkles around his eyes were so unique to his face that, despite the mediocre quality of the print, Sarah immediately recognized it as familiar.  
"I don't believe it! This man looks just like him. Am I seeing things?"

Naturally, since she had not gotten an answer yet, Lavinia still kept asking.  
"What are you seeing, Sarah?"

Finally, Sarah decided to react to her questions. She took the newspaper and held it up for her to see – but just a moment long, because she could hardly stop herself from looking at it.

"Here, in the photograph.", she pointed at the article. "This man looks just like the Doctor!"

After all this time she had spent searching for him, and there he suddenly was. Just a little while after she had finally settled back into her old life and given up for good. Ridiculous! Still, the hope she felt spreading inside of her was real, and so was the glad feeling that he seemed to be alive after all. But, Sarah rationalised her thinking quickly. It was too easy to fall victim to disappointment again. It was a poor photograph after all, and who knew, maybe out in the world really existed someone who just so happened to look a lot like her time travelling friend? Sarah quickly skimmed the article below the picture for any information about him. The text was just a quick note on the starting semester and mentioned the loss of the university's only professor for planetary science during the recent space telescope project. Quite honestly, however, this was of little interest to Sarah at the moment...  
She did not let her aunt have the chance to talk her out of it as she stood up from the breakfast table with the newspaper under one arm, her handbag in the other. "I have to go find him!", Sarah announced.

Of course Lavinia, who had spent so much time to help Sarah return to Earth, had a few objections.  
"But what about the interview today? Sarah, remember, this is also important."

"I'll promise if this is another red herring, it will be the last one I fall for!"  
It was not something she had said out of the spur of the moment as she left the house. If this lead would turn out to be yet another disappointment, she would never think twice again.

Even as Sarah drove out to the university, she kept telling herself that she must not let herself get carried away. The higher her expectations of a possible reunion became, the greater the disappointment would be. But it was only when she arrived at the campus that she realized how little of an idea she had where she should start the search. All of these old buildings and the different faculties… If the Doctor was a professor, what kind of professor would he be? Sarah wandered around the campus and watched all the students pass her by. She had never longed for a life at the university; she had barely been able to stand school. Which was not to say that Sarah was not keen to learn more. It was just that she hated having to force knowledge into her brain, dry as it came, out of books. In her opinion, knowledge had to be experienced to be understood.

On a whim, the journalist decided to talk to a group of three students who were sitting on a bench to enjoy one of the last warm days of the years. The girls all wore the university's uniform, a dark blue jacket on top of a blouse and a long skirt. A different set of button badges on each jacket and a collection of accessories seemed to satisfy the students' common need for individualism. As Sarah approached them, she knew she was probably looking a bit out of place. "Hello.", she greeted the little group while she searched her pockets for the torn out newspaper article with the photograph in it. "I was looking for someone and wondering if you could help me..."

The first one to raise her head was a woman with short, ebony-coloured hair, both slightly smaller and younger than she was. The student looked at her out of big brown eyes and smiled at her friendly. Her facial expression was so pretty and graceful, it reminded Sarah a bit of a china doll. "That depends who you are looking for, but we'll try.", the stranger quickly replied, even before Sarah had unfolded the photograph for her and her fellow students.

As she pointed her finger at the figure of the man in the corner of the image, the first student exchanged a quick glance with her friends to reassure herself before she spoke. "Ah, yes! That's, uhm, Dr. Smith, the professor for planetary sciences!"

"So you know him?", Sarah blurted out, happily surprised and felt a smile spreading on her face. "It's John Smith, isn't it?" That was the name UNIT had always used for the Doctor in the official papers whenever necessary and so the mere mentioning of the last name had raised her hopes even higher.

But the student just blinked at her, slightly confused. "No, that's not it.", she corrected her. "His first name is… what's his first name again? Something starting with _T_..." Impatiently, Sarah waited while she rustled up the memory. "Anthony, that's it! Dr. Anthony Smith. I think most people just call him Tony, though."

The smile on Sarah's face began to crumble, now that reality had just been a stone's throw away from her expectation. But still averse to giving up just yet, she quickly regained her posture and put a smile back on her own face, right as it belonged in the company of people as nice as these were. "Well.. do you think you could tell me where to find him?"

"If you're lucky, you might find him in lecture hall C-2.", answered the student, although a certain amount of scepticism in her eyes proved that Sarah's moment of disappointment had not gone entirely unnoticed. She waited another second to see whether the university guest had any idea where to go and after Sarah signalled her that she had none, the student continued. "That's down the road, turn right into the building with the big entrance, right again and then straight towards the double-doors."

"Thank you very much! You've just helped me a lot." Sarah thanked them politely before getting on her way. "Have a good day!"  
Her feet were moving faster than she consciously had told them to, while at the same time the expectation just continued to build up in the back of her mind. She reached the double-doors mentioned by the student very soon, but the currently ongoing lecture forbid the intrusion at this specific point in time. Still, through the closed doors she could hear a handful of different voices, all muffled and the words far beyond comprehension, but one of them had a baritone sound that was familiar enough to cause her heart to beat ever so slightly louder. Her growing impatience made the wait just more difficult to endure. The wall clock above the lecture hall would know; Sarah would have pushed its hands with the force of her thoughts by now if only she could. Not before long and that rational part of her brain which had continuously warned her of the dangers of building up her expectations too high was being taken over by pure emotion. In her thoughts, she was playing through a dozen different scenarios, trying to bring all the questions she had in some kind of order. What did she want to know first? How the Doctor had ended up at a university? No, first of all she should ask him whether he was fine, and then… why had he gone into hiding? Was the Master still after him? What had happened on that day near the French coast? Too many questions, too many thoughts. None of them really mattered, anyway – he would tell her soon enough. Finally, the clock's hands moved forward again, and the noise of people leaving their seats and tables finally forced its way through the double-doors. Nervously, Sarah bit her thumbnail while she waited for the students to come pouring out of the lecture hall. Once one of the doors opened, she moved out of the student's way, but tried to catch a glimpse of the person in front of the blackboard at the same time. Finally, as most of the lecture hall had emptied, she found a gap in the stream of young people to step past the doorway. But even despite all of her hopeful expectation, she still paused after she had stumbled into the room. Sarah sighed, both relieved and endlessly glad, and felt a smile spreading across her face wider than it ever had during the last month.

==== ==== End of EPISODE 1 ==== ====

* * *

 _Perhaps I should mention that I specifically haven't seen (or read) 'Human Nature' and only know about the basic outline to the plot, in order to avoid being influenced too much by the TV story while writing this._

 _The change of the Doctor's official name is really of no greater importance. Re-using 'John' just didn't work for me - either because it reminded me too much of the original plot line, or because the combination of the name and the Fourth Doctor's face just failed to match._  
 _Just as I reached for script authors' names in 'The Race For Time', I picked 'Anthony' as a reminder of the season 16 script editor, Anthony Read._

 _Besides, there obviously is no place or university called 'Amberton' in the UK. But since I lack the knowledge to write about one of the big universities, especially whatever they were like during the 70s, I decided to make one up. It's not vital to the plot which university it is, anyway._


	7. Daleks And Other Bedtime Stories (Ep2)

==== ==== EPISODE 2 ==== ====

 _{In which Sarah learns about the Doctor's new life and Harry investigates a case of missing people.}_

" _Doctor…_ _!"_ , whispered Sarah. She did not dare to shout through the entire room for him just yet, at least not while there were other people around. Still, she had to bite her lower lip or else her continuously growing smile would have threatened to split in her head in two.

She had not been mistaken. The man standing in front of the chalkboard and currently fiddling with an overhead projector was, purely visually anyway, the latest incarnation of her best friend. A little taller than the average British man, slim, apparently at the age of something around forty. Not particularly handsome, in contrast to Harry for example, but equipped with very distinctive features, such as his mob of curly brown hair, the intrusive, expectant stare, or the toothy grin which he always showed when he laughed. The only thing Sarah was missing on him was his uncommon style of dress. Instead of the coat and waistcoat combination, he wore just an average white shirt tucked into a pair of light brown trousers. Especially for him, who loved his multi-coloured scarf enough to get a little upset whenever it was considered to be impossible by someone, it was strange to see him without as much as a plain neckerchief for once.

After the last student had finally left Sarah's field of view, she stepped out of the corner of the room and ran up to the man she had believed lost for a month. _**"**_ _ **Doctor!"**_ , she called out, but then stopped a mere yard or so away, eagerly awaiting his reaction in the moment he would spot her face.

"Hello?"  
He stopped the process of tidying up his work place as he heard her call, and looked up, but appeared to be quite perplexed to be met with the overwhelmingly glad expression of the young woman. Although their eyes met, his were bare of any recognition or the joy this reunion might have sparked. The moment of puzzlement just continued as he seemingly waited for her to say or do something.

Sarah for her part did not mind that his reaction was not as grand as she had expected it to be. The relief and gladness of finding him well were so strong that, without another word of explanation or greeting, she took a breath and threw her arms around the confused-looking man.

The sudden embrace remained unanswered. Instead, his posture stiffened a little as though he was too surprised to figure out how to react to the gesture. Which, by itself was not that surprising since he had never been much into hugging, anyway – and Sarah cared fairly little about his opinion right now. He was warm and he smelled like tea, sugary sweets and the dust of many old books – which meant that he was alive; That he was real. Not another one of her hopeful imaginations which had always disappeared around the next corner. That was all that mattered in this moment.  
"I thought you were dead!", she exclaimed with a great sigh of relief. Finally, the heavy burden of worries she had carried and so hard tried to forget about, was breaking away.

"I was...? Was I? I feel very much alive, though. Whoever told you otherwise must have been lying." The bafflement was still in his voice, but Sarah knew him as a bit scatter-brained, so that was all right. The next thing he said, however, turned out a lot more confused than usual, even for him.  
"...Are you one of my students?"

The journalist immediately stepped back from him to meet his eye, feeling a little alienated from him all of a sudden and he just looked at her, expectant of an answer or an explanation.  
"No. No, I'm not.", Sarah quickly replied. "Don't you recognize me?"  
Maybe he was just joking, she thought to herself. He liked a good prank, right? But then again, he usually gave his intentions away long before the punch line, with a smirk or an exited gaze... No, this perplexed expression on his face was genuine. Sarah felt a light stinging in her heart. After three years of travelling together, he had to recognize her!

But the Doctor just frowned at her. "Yes, I do… Just, uhm… give me a moment!" He cocked his head, rubbed his chin and tried again. "Have we met at Birmingham, maybe?"

Sarah shook her head and stared at him with her mouth open, shocked that he failed to name her.  
"No, Doctor. It's me! Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane Smith!"

"Ah!" His eyes widened suddenly, a grin finally returned to his face and he opened his hands as if he wanted to applaud her. "Sarah Jane Smith! Of course!" Happy to see his memory spark, Sarah nodded and smiled back at him, but things were just getting more confusing:  
"Why, look at you; You've grown into a fair young lady!", he exclaimed.

"S-Sorry..?", stammered Sarah, suddenly ripped from what she had believed to be the context of their conversation.

"What has it been? Ten years? No, it must have been more. Nineteen years? Twenty! Oh, so long ago!" He was still beaming a happy smile at her, but kept on rambling before the young woman had figured out the right question to interrupt him with. "I remember how your neighbours always used to give me strange looks. They thought that I must have had no friends to be looking after you. But we had the fun of our lives, didn't we?"

Sarah returned to him a confused smile, because yes, they used to have a lot of fun, but not twenty years ago. At that time, she would have been six years old only. Although he once had claimed to have travelled into her childhood to save her younger self from a time paradox, she remembered nothing of it, and believed even less the story he was telling her now.

"And all the incredible stories we used to make up! I was a doctor before I even graduated! Say, do you remember what we used to call the pepper pot monsters?", he suddenly asked.

Still without a clue to what he kept going on about, she took a wild guess.  
"...You mean the Daleks?"

"Yes, those exactly! Oh, they were so very nasty, always killing people..." The Doctor elaborated on his greatest enemy and for a moment he looked as serious as he should be when talking about them. But Sarah had gotten her hopes up too early. A smile soon returned to his face and he pointed at her, claiming that: "Thankfully, our stories always ended well. I mean, I was a fictional hero; of course they had to end well or I could not have sent you off to bed."

"But you _**really are a hero**_! And you still are!", Sarah tried to argue with him and stifled her desire to grab the much taller man by his shirt's collar and shake him until he remembered. His adventures were not just a bedtime stories, they were real, and quite recent, too! But how did it happen that all of it had become this twisted in his memory? Being an amnesiac was one thing, but this was something entirely different.

The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged, flattered. "To you I still am, maybe.", he replied. "But to everyone else I'm just an ordinary man."As he looked at her, he kept his head tilted to one side and showed her a sorry shimmer in his eyes. "It's my fault, really, that you would think of me as greater than I really am: I used to be so egocentric in my storytelling! Looking back at it, you should have gotten the starring role at least once."

His companion squinted her eyes at him, confused and worried. Was he just accusing her of having a wrong picture of him, when it was really the other way around? "Then what about the stories? Were all they all made-up, too? Top to bottom?"

"Yes, of course they were." He hesitated a short moment and blinked at the young woman in surprise. If he really thought that his version was the true one, he probably found it strange that a well-educated, grown woman had never questioned the authenticity of stories about time travel and aliens. "They were just that; Stories. If I had been any good at writing, I might have able been to make something of them, but frankly, I was more interested in solar systems, nebulas and the like. Don't you remember? I didn't always have the time to play with you, sometimes I had to study.", he continued.

Sarah nodded, although she didn't believe a word, and swallowed bitter. The picture he was painting of his past appeared to become quite detailed. But there were so many questions yet to be asked – in fact, she had to question his entire life. After a few seconds of thinking, Sarah decided to ask another one, but only when she uttered the words she felt just how painful they were to her memory of him. "Would it be wrong then if I still called you _**the Doctor**_?"

"Well..." The tall man took in a breath of air as if he spontaneously meant to say something, but then his expression eased again, he smiled, and eventually went for a more detailed answer. "You can keep calling me _**the Doctor**_ if it pleases you. After all, I have a doctorate now. But, as you know, my actual name's still Anthony Smith – or Tony, for short."

As he shrugged again, Sarah was slightly relieved to still be able to call him by the title she had gotten so very used to. On the other hand, he had only assured her now that he really believed to be someone else and that was something she would _not_ get used to any time soon. She did not intend to, either, because he was the one who was wrong out of the two of them – except that only she and UNIT knew about it. In fact, in a bureaucratic sense, he did not even exist on this planet! By logical conclusion, he should not have been able to become a professor without the right academic papers to prove his career. Amberton should have never employed him!

"So, uhm… you're a professor for planetary science now?", Sarah decided to poke around the topic.

"Yes, I dare say so.", he proudly replied, "The university has been a bit at a pinch when the Centauri space telescope project was about to be cancelled due to the vanishing of the professor before me, a Professor Doctor Robert Oliver – a total quack of a doctor he must've been if you ask me. Anyway, I just so happened to apply at the right moment and they were more than happy to employ me."

"Aha..." Sarah could barely keep herself from giving away that all of this was not quite what she wanted to hear from him. Yet she could understand just how he had gotten the position. More than once on their travels the Doctor and his meddling had only found acceptance because he helped those in dire need of assistance. And it must have been just the same with the university this time. If they really needed him, they would take him even if they knew he was a fake.

The Doctor noticed how she was drifting off into thought and attempted to recapture her attention by bombarding her with questions she neither had excepted nor wanted to answer.  
"What about you? How's your aunt doing? What brought you here?"

"Lavinia's fine and I…well.", Sarah stammered, uncertain of how she could satisfy his curiosity. On a whim, she decided to lie to him. "I just entered university. Been doing a bit of journalism before and some travelling." The words came out with a smile, but in reality, it was just all an act. She figured, retrospectively, that it would only damage her credibility if she kept insisting that he was a time traveller as long as he did not believe in it.

"That's great.", he said and nodded. "You must've had an exciting life so far!"

" _You probably wouldn't believe it."_ The reply had only been spoken in her head, because she could not bring herself to say it in fear that he might keep asking about it, forcing her to re-invent their adventures, too…

Their conversation was interrupted when suddenly, someone was clearing their throat loudly. The two friends turned towards the door and there stood a grey-haired professor, ready with his documents under one arm and a few students following him.

"Right." The Doctor hurried up and walked past Sarah into the direction of the exit.  
"You absolutely must tell me more about it sometime. But it looks like I have to get to my office now.", he concluded in regard to Sarah's so-called _exciting life_. At first it seemed as if he was just going to leave, but then he stopped to turn back towards his friend again. "Would like to accompany me?"

And that question was so much like him: The way he cocked his head, smiled and simply expected her to catch up with him. Sarah nodded excitedly and did just that. More even, if he would let her, she would continue to follow him around again. "Say, Doctor, you don't happen to have an assistant yet, do you…? Do you think it would be possible for me to apply?"

"Oh, that's a fantastic idea! No, I don't have an assistant yet, but I would love to work with you.", he replied with great delight. "Let me talk to the dean for you, I'm sure I can make it possible."

During her first day at the university she just followed the Doctor around with, theoretically speaking, very little permission to do so since she was not actually part of the student body.  
It was all right, though, because he introduced her everywhere he went that day – from another course to the dining hall and to his office – as his assistant, almost as if it had always been supposed to be that way. And that was an amazing feeling for Sarah, because it proved to her that she had been right about him all along: Beneath these twisted memories he was still the Doctor she knew and despite of what he had made up their relationship to be, he still treated her the same.  
Whenever Sarah saw a chance to ask him further about his past, she did so. In fact, she asked him more about it than she had ever wanted to know before, while his memory had still been intact. Eventually, she found out that he believed their families had originally bonded over the same family name – despite not actually being related – during the time both of them had lived in a place called Foxgrove. When he began his studies, long after the death of Sarah's parents, he had moved to South Croydon, where he then met her aunt and, according to him, looked after her younger self on a few occasions. This relationship to her family eventually ceased completely after he had moved once more, this time to London, to participate in a research project he failed to give her details on.  
Although Sarah poked around some more in the hope to find a dead end in his memories somewhere, she only ended up hearing more things she did not really want to know. It was all fake, and she could only sigh to herself, wishing that he would be able to see it, too. Whoever had written that new life for him had done so exceedingly well. She might not have been surprised if his very own meticulous brain had made up at least the half of it. Almost any little thing she had ever mentioned to him about her family he had recalled in his story with great precision.

At the end of the day, they parted ways again. Yet it was unlike the last time, or any time before that. He left for home, to return to work the next day, like anyone else did who was caught in the treadmill of ordinary life. But Sarah had been reluctant to accept a fact as simple as this one. His home on Earth was the TARDIS – to her knowledge, anyway – yet he knew of no police box anywhere near his flat in Liverpool. A place he had absolutely no interest to show to her, as he said, because he had moved in only recently and it was not even properly furnished yet. The best she could do to stick around a little while longer was to give him a lift home, but despite her expectations she found nothing out of the ordinary in the entire neighbourhood while she had gazed out of her car's window.

Since Sarah had been left with a feeling that he truly believed in the daily routine and seemed fine otherwise, she eventually decided to let him go. Still reluctantly maybe, and with a little bit of scepticism, but she let him. He had promised her he would be back in the office by half past seven in the morning. The Time Lord she had known would have never agreed to any set appointment unless it was of the utmost importance, and so she remained still a little worried about the discrepancies between his old and new self. In total, however, she was more glad to find him in an otherwise good state of health than she was concerned, and so when she arrived back at Lavinia's place, Sarah had regained some inner peace.

On this evening, she spent hours talking to the Brigadier on the phone about her latest discovery. With the help of UNIT's authority as the higher-valued institution, they managed to quickly arrange a deal with the university so that their management would help them with the cover-up of Sarah's next mission; To keep a close eye on the Doctor. The Brigadier had compared it to a witness protection program in his explanation to the head of university, and thanks to his persuasive talk, the former journalist was able to gain access to a university place and the assistant's position despite the lack of requirements.


	8. The Case Of The Missing Mirror (Ep2)

The following morning, the new assistant of the professor for planetary sciences happily joined her superior in his office. It was fairly big for one person alone and thus, fitted an additional helper such as Sarah with ease. However, the furniture was not as much the Doctor's as it was the one of his predecessor, who had inadvertently passed all of it onto his replacement. Among the many items the Doctor had inherited were a big oak desk, a comfortable office chair, two tall book shelves filled with literature about practically everything the study of planets, including their own, covered, and an old, oval mirror which was currently standing in a corner of the room, facing the wall.

Only a few minutes after Sarah and the Doctor had finished to set up her workplace, the phone on the big desk rang. He shot the apparatus an annoyed glance, then looked at his friend: "From the next time on, you're going to take these calls for me, all right?" But for now, the Doctor still answered the phone himself. "Dr. Anthony Smith at Amberton university."

Sarah stifled her instinctive reaction to wince at the fake name.

But after the caller had given his introduction and his request, he glanced over to his assistant once more.  
"Yes, she's here. I'll pass you over." He passed the receiver to Sarah as promised, and at the same time used the opportunity to tell her about the caller's identity. "There's a Mr. Sullivan who wants to talk to you."

"Hello, Harry.", Sarah greeted the medical officer once the phone was in her hands, smiling happily to hear from him. As she began the conversation, the Doctor sat back down behind his desk to do some work, seemingly disinterested to listen in on them.

"Was that him? That voice…!", a perplexed man stammered at the other end of the line. "Gosh, the old chap's come back after all, has he?"

Sarah licked her lips and thought of her answer carefully, because the Doctor was still in the room with her and might become suspicious if he noticed they were talking of him. "Yes, you've heard correctly.", she assured her friend.

"Well, how's he doing?"

"He's fine as far as I can tell.", replied Sarah, then dropped a hint for Harry before he continued to ask questions that were more difficult to answer in the Doctor's presence. "Listen, Harry, I hope you realize that I'm short-spoken."

"Oh, yes, of course! Sorry, old girl, you're absolutely right.", he finally understood. "The Brig told me his memory's all scrambled. I hope you haven't told him too much about his past life yet. If he isn't ready to believe you now, it might accidentally drive him and his old self further apart. We'll have to give him time, you know?"

Sarah looked at the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. He read through an appropriation request he had formulated the other day and as he leant back, Sarah wondered whether he was going to lift his feet and place them on the desk in front of him. To her disappointment, he did not.  
"Yes, I sort of thought so. Don't worry, I had planned to consult you later today anyway. I would have done so yesterday, but it was getting too late. You didn't think I would have let you miss out on the good news?"

Harry just chuckled in response, and so she continued: "So, is there something else I can help you with?"

"Indeed, there is." There was the sound of someone rustling through a stack of papers in the background. "A minister, called George Patton, has just vanished and… we still haven't got a single clue about what happened to any of the missing people. So the Brigadier and I have done some thinking and we figured that you could take a look around the minister's office, and maybe bring the Doctor along, too. You know, the two of you always find something."

"Are you sure it's not too early for that?"

"Well, he doesn't have to help us if he doesn't want to. Only if he's interested."  
Sarah pictured Harry shrugging as he spoke.

"All right, I'll ask him. Hang on." More instinctively than necessary, she covered the receiver with a hand and looked over to the Doctor. "Doctor? You've been wondering about my journalist life, right?"

Intrigued by her words, the professor looked up from the paper.

Sarah put her elbows on the table in front of her and leaned forward, smiling. "Harry's just called me up because there's still a case unsolved and he wants me to help. Would you be interested to tag along? It's about a minister that has vanished and we'll be looking around his office for clues."

He raised his eyebrows, surprised. "You're authorized to do that?"

"Harry is with UNIT, so it's okay."

"Hm, UNIT...", He pondered for a moment and Sarah saw in his eyes that he had recognized the word. Not everyone knew about the paramilitary organization, but he should. "Yes, sure. I'd love to. It's just that I have to hold another lecture this afternoon and I mustn't skip it. We can go later, though, if that's okay with them.", he said shortly before going back to working on his appropriation request.

A frown of disappointment forced its way on Sarah's face. His response had not been as excited as she had hoped it would be. The Doctor Sarah knew would have dropped everything at once and run to it. He would have preferred an investigation over paperwork any time! Actually, his answer had been very… ordinary. An answer like any other professor with responsibilities would have given her. She had not come to know her friend as a very responsible person, though. Yet despite her inner unwillingness to do so, she saw herself forced to accept it. She discussed the matter with Harry briefly and they settled on the late afternoon to meet at the minister's office.

The rest of the day passed, albeit slowly, and eventually they did as planned and drove out to the minister's residence together. Along with the sight of the old building, they were met with the presence of a single military vehicle, which might have been the one Harry had brought with him. As usual, the Brigadier had other duties to attend to, but at least the medical officer would be there. As Sarah walked through the entrance up a staircase and the Doctor was following her, she passed by two UNIT soldiers in their green uniforms. Apparently, they were here to ensure that, after the minister had been reported missing, the place he was last seen at remained untouched by strangers – like a proper crime scene.

Knowing that Harry was already waiting for the two assistant investigators inside of the minister's office, Sarah had build up some expectation. How would the Doctor react when he met him again? From the telephone call before, she knew he had not recognized Harry's name or voice, but hopefully the sight of the younger man would trigger some proper piece of memory.

As they entered the room, she found the medical officer leaning against a chest of drawers with his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jacket, but now that he had heard the door opening, he stood up straight to come and greet them. "Hello, Sarah.", welcomed Harry her, smiling warmly, before he turned towards the long-lost time traveller. "Hello, Doctor." Under different circumstances, he probably would have added something like _'Nice to you see you again!'_ , Sarah figured.

Almost as if it was their first introduction ever, the Doctor shook hands with him. "You're Harry Sullivan, I presume?" He tilted his head and squinted his eyes while he studied Harry's face for a moment.  
"...Have we met somewhere before?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know, Sir.", the younger man quickly lied, and with a shrug, folded his hands behind his back.

His reply, however, had only caused the Doctor to give it some more thought.  
"You know I think… Weren't you that clumsy chap whom I helped to finish his dissertation at Birmingham? I put my own title on the line for you, didn't I?", he wondered aloud and behind his back, Sarah sighed without a sound to show her disappointment to Harry.

"I wouldn't think so. You see, Doctor, I was trained at the Royal Navy.", the Lieutenant explained in a very humble tone and with a lowly smile. "I may have a medical degree, but none of great academic value, I'm afraid."

"Harry's only allowed to work on the sailors.", Sarah teased, and got an annoyed glance from said medical officer in return, which in turn caused her to chuckle.

But the exchange between the two companions remained disregarded by the Time Lord who was still lost in thought.  
"Strange, I could have sworn we have met before...", Sarah heard him mumbling and she deemed that it was good if he kept rustling through his own memory. The Doctor was a clever man; Once he would begin to realize himself that his memories were all messed up, he might be able to help them to help him.

But despite their efforts, this meeting was not supposed to turn into an undercover therapy session. "Anyway, Harry; why have you brought us to this office?", the young woman asked, just to remind them of UNIT's current investigation.

"This is the place George Patton was last seen in. Apparently he came in here to do some paperwork, but never left the office again. I've been looking around for a bit already, but everything seems in order..." With another clueless shrug, Harry left the matter to the investigative journalist.

She took a first quick glance around the room. It was a very big, almost luxurious office with three large, interconnected windows framed by heavy curtains, an antique desk and a Turkish carpet. To the sides stood several large cabinets made from the same wood as the desk, as well as a chest of drawers to each side and a single hat stand. The whole room looked very tidy in general, and clean too, save for a thin layer of dust in the corners here and there.

"It's not necessarily something out of order that we're looking for.", she taught her friend from the Royal Navy as she began to wander around. "What we like to know is what happened just before the minister vanished, right?"

Harry walked a few steps with her, but then stopped in the middle of the room and crossed his arms. "Well, they say everything's been the same as ever. No strange noises or happenings. Besides, they claim that there is no way out of this building without someone noticing." After a moment of hesitation, he chuckled. "Now I say, I don't think that's true, because apparently, it happened."

Before Sarah went back to examine the minister's desk, she glanced over to the Doctor, who was just leaning against one of the cabinets, but scanning the room by himself. She wondered if he had noticed it, too; How tidy the desk was. Except for a single stray paper clamp and the cap of a pen missing its counterpart, every thing sat at its place. Through simple deduction, Sarah figured that at the time of the vanishing the minister had not been working. However, he had gone missing after spending some time in here. Naturally, you would assume that he spent the time working. Maybe there were more clues around which could support her assumption…

Against the bottom part of the filing cabinet next to the hat stand leaned a closed briefcase. As her sight fell on it, she wondered if this was an unusual place to put a briefcase when everything else was so tidy. The final hint for her, however, was a bowler hat resting on the corner of the desk which was closest to the hat stand.

"I think that the minister was just about to leave when he vanished...", Sarah then decided to tell her friends. "This desk doesn't look like it was used at the time. And the briefcase, the hat... Imagine he cleans up his desk, and as he prepares to leave he puts down his briefcase and the hat first while he hangs his coat or something."

"That's not a bad thought, Sarah!", the Doctor praised her and looked at her with his eyebrows raised, as though he had never pieced a better chain of assumptions together himself. "I must say, I find it surprising that you want to give up journalism to go to university..."

Sarah put on a smile for him. "Just broadening my horizon, Doctor."

He pushed himself away from the cabinet and with a few steps, walked into the middle of the room to stop next to Harry. His eyes focused on something past Sarah; an empty patch of wall between the chest of drawers with the hat stand in front of it and a filing cabinet. "But… have you also noticed that there's something missing here?", asked the Doctor.

Sarah turned to look at the wall. The faded colour of wallpaper showed no indication that something was missing, but he was still right. The room looked unbalanced. One wall was lined with furniture and this one was, too, except for the aforementioned space.

The Time-Lord-turned-professor moved a bit closer to the wall and ran a hand over the structure of the wallpaper to feel for inconsistencies in the imprinting. Eventually, he pointed out to his companion two small holes in the wall above his eye height. "A frame with a picture in it, I'd say?" As he turned and tilted his head into Sarah's direction, a bit of a smug expression had found its way onto his face.

"That's no place for a painting!", Harry suddenly intervened, which caused both of them to look at him surprised.

"And why is that?", the Doctor demanded to know.

The medical officer joined them in front of the wall. "We already know that the minister was leaving, don't we? He was probably off to discuss financial matters over dinner with the premier or something." While speaking he glanced back and forth between his friends. "If I was him, I would put a big mirror next to my hat stand. I mean, to a minister, the success of a negotiation may depend on his looks."

For a few moments, all three of them went silent. They looked together at the wallpaper, probably trying to imagine the mirror hanging there. Eventually, the Doctor turned to Harry with a big, joyful grin. "Why, that's a very good observation! Wouldn't you say it's a good observation?" He gave him a pat on the shoulder, before glancing back at Sarah for quick reassurance. "Well done, Harry!", he concluded.

"Thank you, Doctor."

Harry was beaming with pride as though his superior had just offered him a new badge for his uniform. For all Sarah knew, he was right to be smiling like that, because during their time of travelling together, he had rarely ever gotten any praise. Half the time Harry had just tried not to press the wrong button again.

As the Doctor stepped past them and turned on his heels, she could see by the excited twinkle in his eyes that he wanted to know more. "But now, doesn't this beg the question: If the minister vanished as he looked into the mirror, what happened to the mirror?", he asked his companions.

"I suggest we ask the minister's secretary about it.", Sarah replied. If there had really been a mirror, someone from around the place could tell them.

They left the office and walked back downstairs to chat with the personnel on the ground floor. Indeed, there had been a mirror: An antique, half-blind kind of thing according to the secretary. And yes, they knew that they had not been allowed to take it down, but it was to be picked up for restoration today and to keep it out of the way of UNIT, the mirror had been brought into the basement even before the soldiers had arrived. Realizing now that this was probably a very grave mistake, the elderly secretary apologized to them several times.

Due to the Doctor's growing impatience to see the mirror, he suggested that they should find it themselves. Instead of taking the lead as he always used to do, he waited for Harry and Sarah to find the door to the basement first. It was then that the medical officer had to discover that it was sheer impossible to find one's way around a building one has never been in. He took them into the wrong direction once, then headed back to the reception to ask for the right way. While the Doctor sighed annoyed by the delay, Sarah chuckled. She knew, the Doctor's sense of orientation was nowhere better than Harry's, but he had such a confident to deal with it.


	9. Just A Knock On The Head (Ep2)

Eventually, they found the narrow staircase downstairs. As the three of them walked into the dark, they were met by a big, dimly lit basement, its cold concrete walls and the stuffy smell of dust being raised on their arrival. The whole of the basement was stuffed with antique furniture, old paintings, plant pots, silverware and other trinkets – all of them spread throughout several rooms and corridors to fill the empty space underneath the house.

"All right...", the Doctor said, running a hand through his hair as he laid eyes on the mess of scattered objects in the first room. His eyes searched the surroundings but there was no framed mirror to be found. "Let's split up, then. We're looking for a framed antique mirror, roughly 25 by 32 inches big..." He took a breath and for a moment it looked like he wanted to add something, but it took a while until he had found the right words. At first, he pointed at the doorway up ahead, but then changed his mind, pointed left of him, and finally announced with a bit of uncertainty: "I'll go this way?" With a final shrug, the Doctor walked away and left his companions standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Well, Shout if you find it!", Sarah instructed the naval officer, then turned on her heel in a playful, elegant way to walk into the opposite direction.

Harry just shrugged with his hands in the pockets of his jacket and sighed. "Door number three it is for me, then. I hope you haven't left me the blank."

In the end, it really didn't matter who of them found the mirror, or when. For all that Sarah cared, her friends were allowed to take their dear time. There were so many things to be discovered in the basement of a house with a history as long as this that she was tempted to study all of it. Plenty of the old and broken objects which had been forgotten under thick layers of dust told a story of their own; Stories of many people long gone, events long past. There was nothing she was particularly interested in, but as a naturally curious person she hoped to find that one story worth looking into further. On her search through the storage room, she lifted the blankets off of two frames only to discover old landscape paintings, faded by sunlight, underneath. Yet just as she was beginning to enjoy her trip through the building's history, Sarah was suddenly interrupted by the distant sound of something clattering and breaking on the concrete floor.

She rolled her eyes, but chuckled to herself as she turned towards the source of the sound. "Oh, Harry butterfingers...!"  
While she was still wondering whether it was worth to take a look at what he had knocked over, she heard two people running through the corridors.  
At the time, she didn't think much of it, until she heard Harry call "Doctor…!" in such a worried tone, she instantly knew that this was not just about some clumsy little accident. Sarah spun around and hurried up to meet up with her friends, but as she passed the staircase leading back to the ground floor, she noticed out of the corner of her eye someone running upstairs with a large object under his arm. She halted trying to spot who it was, but the stranger was gone before she could identify him or her. Just as she was about to make a decision on whether to follow this person or not, Harry called for her. And when he called like this, she knew where she was needed.

Following the direction of his voice, she found both Harry and the Doctor two rooms further into the basement, but she was shocked by the sight of the scene her eyes fell on. There was something disturbingly familiar about entering a room and finding the Time Lord in need of help once again. There were shards of china all over the floor and the Doctor amidst them, just lying there with his face down in the dust, unconscious. Judging by the scene of the crime, someone had just broken an old vase on his head – most likely the same person Sarah had seen running upstairs, but now it was far too late to catch them.

She quickly joined Harry who was already kneeling on the floor and helped him to clear away some of the dangerously sharp pieces of china so they could turn their friend on his back. "Have you seen who did this, Harry?", asked Sarah.

"Barely.", the medical officer answered briefly while he checked for the Doctor's pulse.

Sarah silently watched him count the beats and the worried, but also slightly confused frown forming on the younger man's face.

"He's all right, isn't he? It's just a knock on the head?" The Doctor has had plenty of those in the past. But despite her experience with his misadventures, Sarah still could hardly bear to see him unconscious, always worried that, this time, he might not wake up any more.

Harry shot her a glance, but waited with a reply until he was certain. Since he was among a handful of people with medical training that had some knowledge about a Time Lord's physiology, he listened for the Doctor's heart beat twice – for each of his two hearts. Sarah was used to that, but then Harry's frown grew deeper and he double-checked, which caused her worries to increase.

"I say", Harry exclaimed, looking almost a little frightened now, "That can't be right."

"What, Harry? What can't be right?", Sarah demanded to know.

He gasped as he overcame a moment of shock. "I think he's suffered a cardiac arrest."

The young woman shook her head as a small shiver ran down her spine. "What do you mean? He was fine all day!", she claimed, not wanting to accept what was usually a death sentence for a human – and could not be a lot less worse for a Time Lord.

"I mean that the second heart doesn't appear to be beating at all."

Sarah gave him a stern look. "I'm sure you haven't listened for long enough. I made that mistake once, too."

"I know what I'm listening for, Sarah.", insisted the Surgeon Lieutenant. "They measured ten beats-per-minute once when he was in a self-induced coma, but I'm getting a pulse of 70. Mind you, that's only one heart I'm referring to now."

Nervous with worry, Sarah chewed on her lower lip. "Well, can he make do with just one heart? Is it lethal?"

"Honestly, I don't know. But it can't be good if one heart has to make up for two, I suppose...", Harry tried to answer, but rubbed his neck in an anxious manner. "The strange thing is; This must have happened way before. I mean, a knock on the head cannot possibly cause this!"

"I don't like this at all...", she quietly said and looked down at the middle-aged man with great pity. Just when she had moved on from the things which had happened back then at the French coast, she was reminded of it again. Could this have been the Master's fault? Carefully, Sarah lifted the Doctor's head and placed her arm under his neck to keep him off the cold, dusty concrete floor for the time being. As she felt a warm drop of blood on her fingers, she noticed a small cut on the back of his head which had probably been caused by the breaking of china. "We should try to get him to the sick bay at UNIT.", Sarah suggested.

Harry nodded in silent agreement, but with a concerned expression on his face.

But before he could get up to organize a transport, Sarah felt life returning to the limp body of her friend. He moved with a quiet groan and brought a hand up to his head as he grimaced in pain. "He's coming around!", Sarah gladly announced to Harry.

"Doctor?" The younger man moved closer to the two.

"Ow… What is this nasty headache?", uttered the Doctor finally and, blinking his eyes, he discovered the face of Sarah leaning over him. At first, he seemed a little surprised to be met with the familiar sight, but then he smiled softly.

"Someone broke the minister's best china on your head.", Harry briefly explained to him while the Doctor pushed himself up into a sitting position.

He looked at the medical officer, then at Sarah and back at him again. "How long was I out?", he asked and just in the moment he breathed in sharply because he had discovered the small cut amidst his curls by himself. The red colour of blood on his fingers didn't please him, but didn't concern him particularly, either.

"Just for a couple of minutes. But, can you tell us what happened?"

"Ah, yes!" Suddenly, the Doctor turned around and pointed at a stack of boxes behind him. "I just found the…" Surprised not to find what he meant to point at, his explanation was suspended mid-sentence and he had to start again. "The mirror was right there, covered with a big white blanket."

"I suppose whoever attacked you didn't want UNIT to have it...", figured Harry.

As the Doctor attempted to get back on his feet, Sarah was by his side to help him get up. "Did you see who attacked you?", she continued the questioning, but he just shook his head at her.

"No, they didn't have the decency to introduce themselves.", he told her with a displeased look on his face. Still a bit unsteady on his feet, Sarah felt a part of his weight resting on her shoulder. His gaze wandered around the basement room as he attempted to orient himself again and he pressed a hand on the wound on his head.

"I better attend to that.", Harry suggested. "But let's get you to the UNIT sick bay first."

Just as he had heard the words, the Doctor shot him a glare. "It's not _THAT_ bad, Harry. Besides, don't you mean the infirmary?"

"No, I don't mean...", the medical officer stopped right there and Sarah saw him twitch lightly as if a memory had just stung him and he had to make sure he was not heading into the same situation again. Harry cleared his throat. "We, uh… I mean, it's an insurance thing. UNIT policies regarding civilians and all that.", he hummed and hawed, and finally came up with what he deemed plausible.

Harry was not a good liar at all, but lucky for them, the Doctor bought into it, anyway.  
"Well, fine. But let's get it over with quickly then.", he submitted himself to the procedure in place, but let out an annoyed sigh, just to complain quietly. As he took the first steps out of the room, Sarah followed him quickly, but she stopped to look back at Harry for a moment. She rolled her eyes with ostentation to mark her opinion of the taller man's displeased reaction. The medical officer was unable to reply something, because the Doctor would have heard him, but judging by his expression she imagined that the alien was among Harry's least favourite patients ever since he tied him up with a jump rope and hung him in a cupboard. And all of that had just happened because Harry had tried his best to persuade him to some more rest after his last regeneration.

They were not in a particular hurry to leave the building, but even so they didn't stop in the lobby to ask about the stranger who had attacked the Doctor. Someone around the place had been bound to notice and they would still be around for questioning later, unlike the culprit himself.

Sarah took her two friends to the UNIT headquarters in her car. The trip was surprisingly short, which pleased the Doctor, since he was already feeling like his time was being wasted with exaggerated care for his health. His attitude proved to be a big problem to Harry, who had not taken him all the way to the sick bay just to stitch up a cut. Not just for that, anyway. Both he and Sarah knew that they had to find out what had caused the cardiac arrest of the second heart the medical officer had diagnosed earlier. Needless to say, it took quite a bit of persuasion and many shallow arguments to get the Doctor to agree to as much an x-ray. Sarah had clearly sided with Harry on this one, or otherwise he might not even have listened to them. Secretly, she wished he had just stayed unconscious for a little while longer. For a while, she had also contemplated to tell the Doctor straight away about his condition, but quite frankly she was not even sure whether he was aware that he wasn't exactly human. Better to check first, talk later.

While the Surgeon Lieutenant disappeared into the laboratory to gather the results of his tests, Sarah and the Doctor waited in Harry's office, which was a sparsely decorated room in desperate need for a window. Its metal table and cabinets could touch a soldier's heart at best, but it was not the kind of environment Harry would enjoy to work in. Maybe that was why he was out on missions so often. Over the backrest of the chair her alien friend was sitting in hung his brown corduroy jacket. It had dark leather patches on the elbows, just like a similar red jacket he used to wear a while back. Earlier, he had taken out of its pocket a curious little object along with his wallet and now that Sarah had a little time to take a look around, it caught her attention. While the Doctor was not paying attention to her, she took it into her hands and her eyes widened as she recognized it. It was a fob watch, about as big as the palm of her hand, complete with a brass shell and a chain. There were circular symbols engraved on the top of it, but also a dent and a crack in the casing – just as she remembered it. Even now, she noticed a faint glow of light emitted from something on the inside. This fob watch was the one the Master had brought with him! It was part of the contraption he had forced the Doctor into. Out of natural curiosity, Sarah attempted to open the shell of the fob watch to look at the clock face inside. But the mechanism holding the two halves of the shell together was broken. It clicked and rattled, but it failed to open. She dug her fingernails into the crack next to the lock, yet even her attempt of bending it remained unsuccessful. Instead, she almost ripped a nail.

"Don't bother with it.", the Doctor said suddenly, before he snapped out of his absent-mindedness, blinked and turned around to face her. "It's too bent to open up. I've tried it several times before."

Sarah lifted up the watch to show it to him. "What is this?", she asked with great expectation.

"It's a fob watch…?" He raised an eyebrow at her, probably wondering why she asked such an obvious question.

"No, I mean… where is this damage coming from? And where did you get it?", Sarah quickly rephrased her question. Still, she had to realize that he was unable to remember the same things as she did.

"I don't know.", he just answered. "It was already broken when I found it in my pocket. But I can't remember where it came from. It might have been in my possession for a long time and I've just forgotten about it."

Sarah sighed, dissatisfied with the answer. In the faint hope that he might remember some more if she gave him a little more time to answer, she dangled the watch by its chain in front of his face. "So you don't remember anything about it?"

His eyes followed the movement of the watch for a little while, but he didn't allow for it to mesmerise him. "Why? Should I?", he wondered instead, looking back up at his companion's face. "I don't even get the engraving: _'As time will come, so time will tell.'_ It doesn't mean anything to me. Maybe, it's not my watch after all..."

Realizing that what he had just said was a quote, Sarah double-checked the fob watch. There was no such writing to be found anywhere. "Engraving? What engraving?"

He took the object back out of her hands, then presented it back to her, tapping at the watch cover. "These circles here. They're Gallifreyan, as far as I know."

But still she looked at him surprised to hear the name of his home planet out of his mouth, despite his apparent loss of identity. "What's _Gallifreyan_?", she questioned him, playing along as though she had no idea. In fact, she really had not. For whatever reason, the thought that Gallifrey had its own written language had never occurred to her before.

"An old, Celtic language. Has been used in some parts of ancient Ireland, I believe.", he pondered for a moment or two, then chuckled at her. "You'll probably pick up a few useless skills during your studies as well."

There was no use in telling him that Gallifrey was a planet, was there? Even if the word meant something to him, he probably had another great lie at hand, which he believed in whole-heartedly as though it was the truth. Sarah just stared back, somewhat disappointed, but couldn't think of any reply or comment to add.

"Honestly though, I don't know why I'm holding onto this watch.", the Doctor eventually admitted with a shrug. "It's obviously of no use if you can't read the time."

A little afraid that he might lose the object if he regarded it as useless, independent of whether the loss would be intentional or accidental, Sarah decided that it might be better if she looked after it. "If you don't mind, could I have it then?" She tried a bit of a begging expression to support her request.

The Doctor pondered about it for a little while. "I don't see why not.", he decided eventually, scratched his head, but dropped the fob watch into the open palm of her hand nonetheless. "But you shouldn't lose it. I might want it back sometime." His words just further evidenced that the watch was special in one way or another.

Smiling gratefully, Sarah replied: "Don't worry, I'll take good care of it."  
Of course, she had no idea what to do with it... Obviously, it was a mayor clue to the Doctor's current condition, but that was already where logical deduction based on common knowledge ended for her. If only she knew where the TARDIS was! Then, at least, she could get access to the contraption this fob watch was used with – try around with it, figure things out!


	10. The Doctor's Diagnosis (Ep2)

"Sarah?", called the voice of Harry, who had just reappeared in the office entrance and was holding the door open. "Could you help me with something for a moment?"

Hidden in the way he had chosen his words, Sarah thought she had caught wind of something that was only meant for her to hear and so she played along without questioning. "Sure.", she cheerfully replied and walked out to follow him.

Even though the door had fallen into its lock behind them, the medical officer lead her another room further away, all the way to the end of the sick bay. Like a true professional, he was wearing a lab coat over his usual navy blue dress now and carried a clipboard around with him. Sarah could not help but wonder what was written on the papers.

"Well, old girl, I have some good news and some bad news...", Harry finally began, but then hesitated as he waited for Sarah to make a choice.

"There's good news?", she asked as she took a deep breath to brace herself for whatever was to follow. The look on Harry's face revealed to her that the matter was rather complicated. "Let's hear the good news first, then."

"Save for that small cut from the china, he's perfectly healthy...", Harry said, smiling. But he was just smiling for her and Sarah could see the cracks in his façade all too plainly.

Even so, she sighed in relief. "So you were mistaken about the heart failure? But that's great!"

Realizing that he had to give away the bad news now, Harry's smile fell away and he frowned worriedly.  
"Well, it's really not that simple… You see, he's perfectly healthy… for a human., that is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sarah demanded to know, confused, albeit the message had been rather clear.

The medical officer pulled up his clipboard to read from. "It means that he's got one heart with no trace of there ever having been two. His blood type is AB positive, which no one had been able to identify before, and although I can't know for sure – stubborn patient that he is – I don't think he still has a body temperature of 15 degrees Celsius..."

"You're saying he's not a Time Lord… any more?"

"Afraid so. I've cross-checked with the little information I gathered from his medical records, but it seems that there is little to no abnormality compared to the human standard now." Harry looked at her and gave a somewhat nervous chuckle. "...So very odd, isn't it? For once, he's one of us. But I haven't got the slightest clue what could have made him that way..."

As she tried to make something of that, to identify the consequences of it, Sarah paced a few steps up and down. She had never thought about it like that, but she could clearly see now that Harry was right. In fact, if she would have paid more attention, she might have noticed on the first day already that something was wrong. More wrong than just his memory of her. She remembered thinking that he was real because he felt warm when she had thrown her arms around him on their reunion. But that was what one would expect of a fellow human, not of a Time Lord. His kind were cold-blooded. As in, literally, but thankfully not metaphorically...  
But as for his current state… did it not make him vulnerable? She was a little taken aback by fear when she thought of all the possible ways his enemies could kill him now. Or worse even, all the accidents that could cost his life. No _respiratory bypass system_ to save him from suffocation, no regeneration to cheat death with. No immunity against the common human illnesses and weaknesses.  
"So, he might choke on a Jelly Baby now? Strangled by that stupid scarf of his?" An upset young woman turned back to her friend.

"Sarah...", he reminded her, surprised that she would pose questions such as these. "That's what can happen to any of us. He's no more vulnerable now than you or me..."

"Right..." Sarah blinked confused, but nodded in response. For a few seconds she was no longer certain what had caused her to think otherwise, but then she found the right words to explain herself to Harry. "But, if he knew about it…!", she tried again, but ended up hesitating.

"He'd probably be mad at whoever or whatever caused this.", Harry concluded for her, shrugging. "But he doesn't know. He thinks he's a human, with an ordinary life like any of us had before he and his time machine entered our lives. And for the current situation he's in, he's even right to think so."

Nervous and uncertain what to make of all this, Sarah bit her fingernail and kept on pacing around the sick bed the medical officer had sat down on. "I don't know…!", she argued weakly, "But it's just not right. I mean we know who he really is! Don't you think we should tell him?"

Harry crossed his arms. "I've pondered about that for a bit, already… I mean, I'd love to – I can't stand lying to him, anyway. But would he believe us? Would you believe me if I told you that you're an alien, hundreds of years old, having had at least three different faces prior to this one?"

"No, I wouldn't!", she quickly replied, so she could deliver an argument immediately afterwards. "But it's different with him. We have lots of evidence to prove our story with!"

"Evidence? You mean this?" Harry held up the clipboard. "This is hardly anything. If I wouldn't know the old fellow, I would think this is some kind of elaborate joke. These records could be of two entirely different creatures!"  
Sarah sighed, rolled her head around and began to pace around the room anew. Just as she passed him by again, Harry held out a hand to signal her that it was time for her to stop this useless worrying. "Listen, old girl, I might not be able to help him straight away, but I do have a plan of sorts… Who do you reckon knows how a complete restructuring of internal organs, metabolism and everything is possible?"

Sarah shrugged at the question first, and then gave it another thought. "I don't know… the Doctor?", she finally replied and with an expectant gaze, she waited for Harry to explain what he was getting at.

"If only he would remember, yes. He's been involved in it, after all!", he then concluded for her. "Like I told you before, we can't tell him just yet that he's an alien time traveller – but we can try to confront him with questions and familiar faces, one at a time, until something clicks." He was a doctor for medicine and not for ailments of the mind, but still Sarah trusted his expertise. You may say about his occasional clumsiness or cluelessness whatever you may like, but he was always and absolutely professional about his job. Since Sarah's expression was still pleading for something optimistic to hear, the medical officer added: "Best case: Once he remembers, he can help himself."

The young woman nodded without a word in response. He was right, she knew, but it didn't help to lift her mood.  
"So, what's the worst case, then?", she demanded to know, but had not given the question much thought before blurting it out. Deep down, she knew she should not have asked. After all, chances were that she would not feel better if she knew.

Harry gasped for air, obviously not feeling any better having to think up the worst scenario. As he finally spoke, however, his lowly voice had a hopeful, comforting tone to it.  
"Uhm… well, he won't remember and then we'll all just grow old and grey together."

There was something bitter-sweet about the picture he had just painted in Sarah's imagination. A faint smile forced its way on the young woman's lips. Although she had always avoided to think of it, she knew that the Doctor was bound to outlive all of them, and it was sad to think that the day would come where his best friends would not be around for him any longer. In that sense, growing old together was not the worst fate for them. In fact, she might enjoy it. In 40 years of time, all three of them sitting on a park bench somewhere and telling still the same old, silly jokes and impossible tales.  
Yet she knew the Doctor too well to disregard his opinion on the matter; For someone who was 750 years old, if he knew he was not going to live to see more than another 50 years, this fate had to be as good as the death sentence carried out the next morning. He would not enjoy it. He would hate it. It would be nothing but unnatural for him.  
With a quiet moan, Sarah dropped down on the sick bed next to Harry and folded her hands in her lap.

As she glanced up to the well-dressed naval officer next to her, he spoke again.  
"In any case, we'll be there for him all the way.", he assured her, and this time, the smile on his face was more honest, more optimistic than the last time. "Even if he should be of no more use to UNIT, he's still a good friend to you and me. Isn't that right, Sarah?"

The smile on Sarah's face grew wider. Of course, he was right and she was so glad that there was someone else who understood that feeling of worry and confusion in her head. Sometimes, old-fashioned values were not so wrong. She nudged him jokingly. "You're invaluable, Harry."

"Don't say something like that. I'm just following my moral compass to do what is right. I'm a doctor, too, after all.", he replied quickly, then pushed himself off the bed. After a short pause, Harry suggested to return to his office. "Well, let's not keep the patient waiting for too long. I'll just tell him that he's fit as a fiddle – to which he will probably reply that he already knew."

They walked back together, but the young woman still chuckled at his honest remark. As they opened the door to Harry's office, the Doctor was sitting on his chair facing the wrong way and leaning over the backrest. He seemed a bit startled by the sound of the door opening, which suggested that he might have been lost in thought again. When his eyes fell on Harry, the medical officer was almost immediately greeted with an annoyed glare.

"So, tell me: How bad is it? Will I die?", the Doctor demanded to know. His voice bore a strong ironic tone. Once he had gotten up from his chair, he picked up his jacket and threw it over his shoulder, ready to leave.

Harry looked perplexed for a moment, although he had already expected to be met with such disapproval. "Oh, you're perfectly all right, Doctor.", he quickly tried to appease him.

"Of course I am! I told you so, didn't I?", the Doctor slightly raised his voice in response to mark how certain he was. Even if the medical officer would try to tell him otherwise, Sarah knew for sure now that he was in no mood to listen. "Now if you're quite done wasting my time, Sarah and I have to get back to university."

"We do?", asked his companion, surprised. There was no appointment she knew of, but still the Doctor turned her around by her shoulder, towards the door. All Sarah could do was to glance back at the medical officer and to apologize with a shrug. "Sorry, Harry.", she told him quietly.

"Yes, we do, because I have to and it's your car we've come here with.", the Doctor urged her out of the room. "Now, come on!"

Once they were out of the sick bay, he took the lead back out of the building. To Sarah's surprise, he either had remembered the way back to the parking lot quite well or he actually remembered the layout of the UNIT headquarters. In any case, his steady strides showed her that he had no interest to look around the building further. Sarah wished he had; there were more familiar faces for him too meet.

Not even a full minute after Harry had been out of hearing range, the Doctor suddenly shot a glance over to the young woman walking at his side. "And what's with that pitying look?", he asked out of the blue and a frown of seriousness had appeared on his face, which he turned away again almost immediately.

"What pitying look?" Sarah had not noticed that she had formed such an expression, and even less thought that he might notice it.

Upon her response, he looked at her once more and pointed at her face.  
"There, in your eyes!", he claimed. Instead of being all serious, there was a bit of concern in his voice now. "Has Harry told you something I should know of?"

The young woman gasped looking for words. She had not meant to pity him, but if it had been so plain for him to see, she had to make up a good lie now. Although struggling a bit, she finally found something to say.

"Ah, no. No… we were just talking about an old friend of ours. It's just the melancholy, I suppose." To fake honesty, she added a smile and a shrug. She downright hated having to lie to him. It just felt so horribly wrong. The more glad was she when he turned his eyes away.

"Sarah, I know you've been worried for a long time because you thought I was dead, but this time, I was just knocked out… I'm all right now.", the former time traveller attempted to ease her worries, which quite honestly did not help much since he had little idea what this was really about. A clueless shrug just underlined her assumption that he merely wanted her to lighten up. "These things happen when you get involved in government businesses, don't they?"

"I know, Doctor. And I'm glad you are all right." The reply was not entirely true, but not entirely wrong either and Sarah patched it with a light smile again in hope to make it seem more convincing. She was endlessly grateful when he just nodded and then let go of the subject.

On their way out, he only stopped once more, just when they arrived at Sarah's car and she was unlocking the doors. The Doctor knocked on the car's roof to get her attention, then asked, wondering: "By the way, have you noticed that Harry has the same _**affliction**_ as you?"

Sarah noticed quickly by the look in his eyes that he had used the word in a jokingly manner, and was not to be taken too seriously. "What kind of _**affliction**_?"

"He keeps calling me _**'Doctor**_ _ **'**_ , like he doesn't know my name – just like you do.", he replied. "Don't you think that's a bit funny?"

It seemed he did not mind too much not to be called by his new name, and Sarah couldn't help but laugh as she opened the door on the driver's side. "I think it's a bit funny that you failed to notice how you keep saying _**'Harry'**_ like he's always been your pal!"

Caught off guard by that reply, the Doctor blinked at her confused. However, it took no longer than a few seconds, before he regained his posture "Well...", he said explicitly in a serious tone. "He doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing, but he's probably a very decent chap at heart."

Sarah just kept chuckling at this defensive argument, then let herself drop behind the steering wheel of her little car. Even though it might be subconsciously, he knew he could trust Harry with his life!


	11. Mirror, Mirror (Ep2)

==== ==== Harry Sullivan ==== ====

Back in the Surgeon Lieutenant's office, Harry was just filing away the latest report on the Doctor's health. It felt quite strange to mix into the failed analysis of blood samples and oddest of measurements one list of results that was so different by just being normal… Had the Doctor not recognized him and Sarah, the young medical officer might have been tempted to doubt the man's identity. But just how could a Time Lord turn into a human? Harry had already told Sarah that he had no clue. In fact, he could not even begin to imagine how anyone would survive a fundamental change in physical structure like that. And even if it was possible – somehow – it had to be both extremely dangerous and painful! Although he hoped for the sake of his friend that there was a way to revert the process, he was not very optimistic about it. Unless the Doctor remembered the scientific details himself to teach them to someone, the former Time Lord really might be bound to stay human for the rest of his now, comparatively short, life.

Harry hung his lab coat on a hook and sat down in his office chair to ponder about the matter a while longer. Just today, the Brigadier had left for Geneva and he found that he was rather glad not to have to explain the matter to his superior just yet. It might even be better if the knowledge remained with Harry, Sarah and the Brigadier only. The Doctor's enemies on Earth – especially the Master – would better not know of his vulnerable state. Sarah had not been so wrong after all; Now Harry found himself thinking about how useful it was for the Doctor to be a good bit tougher than your average human when it came to finding oneself in tight spots.

Suddenly – because it only ever happened suddenly – there was a knock on the door. When Harry called for the stranger to enter, the door was already opening. In came Benton, who as usual, was smiling as he greeted the medical officer.  
"Hello, Mr Sullivan."

"Hello, Benton.", Harry replied friendly. "What can I do for you?"

The Warrant Officer walked up to the other side of Harry's desk. "I've heard through the grapevine that you've been out investigating with the Doctor and Miss Smith, is that right?"

"Yes, that's right, Benton. They're both well… considering.", Harry replied hesitantly, careful not too spill too much this time. Whatever Benton knew would spread twice as fast through the so-called grapevine.

The soldier looked at him confused. "Eh? Considering what?"

"Considering his loss of identity. He doesn't seem to remember his involvement with UNIT and... all that." It wasn't quite true, obviously, but Harry was far from the right mood to explain it all in detail at the moment. So he rather kept it vague and spared himself of too many questions.

"Oh." Benton's smile faded and he looked almost disappointed now. For him, it was probably a privilege that an extraordinary being such as the Doctor knew his name… had known his name. "How did that happen?", he naturally wanted to know.

"We don't know. Not yet, anyway.", replied Harry.

"Well, if there's anything I could help with, you know, I'd be glad to lend a hand." Judging by Benton's smile he would have been happy to do just about anything. Maybe he had too much time to spare at the moment...

"No offence, Benton, but if I need assistance I would rather ask the Brig first. He knows best what to do.", the medical officer excused himself. After all, the hierarchical structures at UNIT were there for a good reason. "But thank you, anyway."

"You're probably right about that." Benton nodded approvingly. "By the way, Sullivan… I've also heard that you were looking for a mirror?"

"In a sense, yes... we were attacked and the mirror was stolen." Harry looked at him a little surprised at how much information had already spread. "Why are you asking?"

"I just remembered and thought I should let you know; There was this huge mirror in the office of the weapon manufacturer who disappeared three weeks ago or so.", explained Benton and shrugged, uncertain of the facts he was presenting. "We packed a couple of things for further investigation and I believe that the mirror was among them. They have brought it into storage room A-12, if I'm not mistaken."

Harry frowned at him. Could it really be that mirrors had something to do with these cases? After all, there was nothing scientifically unexplained about mirrors: Glass, a shiny surface and a frame. The only thing which suggested that something was out of order was the fact that someone had knocked out the Doctor just to prevent the mirror's discovery. "...Was there something unusual about it?", he asked after a little while of pondering about the meaning of this information.

Benton's apologetic smile grew a bit wider. "Sorry, Mister. I wouldn't know. I was around for the moving, but I didn't decide why to move what and all that." Just before he continued, he pointed towards the office exit. "We could take a look at it, though."

"Let's do just that, then.", agreed Harry, got up and followed the Warrant Officer out of the room so he could take him to the storage where the mirror was kept.

Halfway across the grounds of the UNIT headquarters, they arrived in front of an open door and looked into the darkness of an unlit, windowless storage hall with a low ceiling. Benton reached around the door frame to flick the light switch. Exposed bulbs dangling above their heads lightened up and revealed several racks in the dusty, cold room. Inside of them laid plenty of small and medium sized boxes filled with items of lesser importance which UNIT had collected from various investigation sites. For an organization that had to deal with chaos on an almost regular basis, the storage was fairly orderly. Harry liked it this way and was just as pleased to find the mirror Benton had been talking of sitting right in front of them.  
It was really a rather big mirror. Three foot high at least and it was held by a simple, yet beautiful wooden frame.

"I suppose this is the one?", Harry asked as he approached the object and while Benton voiced his agreement, he decided to pick up the piece of decoration and to place it on a nearby table. Although unhandy and heavy, he eventually managed to arrange the mirror at a comfortable level of height to inspect it from.

"It doesn't seem too unusual to me.", Benton commented, while at the same time, the medical officer examined the object closely.

But that was slightly more difficult than expected. Harry could not help it, his eyes were continuously drawn to look at the well-dressed, young man staring back at him. He had never considered himself as vain, but it was in the nature of a mirror to reveal every little imperfection to oneself and someone as self-critical as he was had to blink twice before he managed to turn his eyes away. Even so, Harry eventually discovered a strange, triangular shape in the mirror's reflection. It had a natural, ochre colour and did not fit with the rest of the picture. As he felt the smooth surface for any unevenness, he noticed that the shape always remained, even when the mirror should have reflected the palm of his hand.

A simple case for the medical officer. It was probably just a small damage underneath the glass, causing the backside of the mirror to shine through. "I say, this thing's just any old mirror.", he told the Warrant Officer with a shrug and moved back from the framed object. Maybe he had been right from the start, the business with the mirror had just lead them astray. Harry shoved his hands into the pockets of his buttoned jacket and looked at the man who had accompanied him here.

"Aw, well. I thought it was worth a shot.", apologized Benton.

They turned around to walk back out of the room. "That's all right.", Harry told him.

But what either of them failed to notice in this moment was that even after they had walked out of the mirror's reach, there was still the image of a man reflected in it. Dressed in a navy blue jacket on top of a white shirt and a neckerchief – a perfect copy of Harry Sullivan. But there was something twisted in the eyes of the reflection. It watched the two military men leave as though it had a mind of its own…

==== ==== End of EPISODE 2 ==== ====

* * *

 _I've struggled more than I should have trying to define how the relationship between the Doctor and Harry works. Sarah and the Doctor is easy, Sarah and Harry slightly more difficult, but still well-defined. But when it comes to having the Doctor interact with Harry or vice-versa, there is surprisingly little season 12 gave me to work with. Both 'Ark in Space' and 'Revenge of the Cyberman' left me with the impression that the Doctor would think of Harry as being slow on the uptake, whereas 'Genesis of the Daleks' and 'The Sontaran Experiment' prove that he trusts Harry with his and other people's lives... The other way around things get even more difficult. Was Harry ever fascinated by the worlds and wonders he encountered during his time as a companion? The fact that he signed off on the first chance he got implies that he was rather intimidated, yet Ian never portrayed him as frightened._

 _There is also the problem with lots of people either shipping Four/Sarah or Harry/Sarah, which puts the third of the trio in the position of the competitor. While I am mostly okay with either shipping in other fanfictions, I prefer to remove any traces of shipping to allow for the dynamic of them as a trio - something we had too little of in the series (they remained separated for the greater part of the stories)._

 _By now, I'm about to write the ending of the story, but I'd like to have some input on Harry's character, anyway. So please point out to me if you find him doing something out-of-character despite my best efforts in getting him right!_


	12. University Life (Ep3)

==== ==== EPISODE 3 ==== ====

 _{ In which the Doctor re-discovers his sense of adventure and Harry develops a paranoia regarding mirrors. }_

"It's all right.", Harry told the Warrant Officer. After all, it appeared that the mirror UNIT had found during an earlier investigation was nothing out of the ordinary. Either the one the Doctor had discovered at the minister's place had been very different from this one – or there was little point in chasing after mirrors altogether.

But just as he and Benton turned and walked away, the seemingly lifeless reflection in the mirror remained, then developed a life of its own. The image of Harry Sullivan watched them walk away with a malicious glare in its eyes.

The two however, having failed to notice the anomaly, left the room without turning back and as Benton flicked off the lights, nothing could be seen any more. Not the mirror, and not the figure within it. They shut the door behind them, leaving the storage in absolute darkness.

==== ==== Sarah-Jane Smith ==== ====

A few days later Harry called the former journalist to tell her that UNIT has done some investigating about the minister's mirror and the person who stole it. Even though the secretary had claimed that the antique piece should have been picked up that day for restoration, it had never arrived at its destination. But whoever the stranger was who attacked the Doctor, he had known of the arrangement and made use of it in order to enter and leave the building unhindered. And although UNIT had a somewhat vague description of a man dressed in black, so far his whereabouts, origin or intention remained unknown.  
But not every lead had gone cold. The minister himself, had unexpectedly turned up again. So far, he was not up for a thorough questioning, but at least his office was not without an occupant any more.  
As for mirrors, however, Harry had argued with Sarah over the usefulness of tracking down the minister's mirror, now that the man himself was back. It could be but a red herring and have nothing to do with the cases at all. Clever deduction or not, the object might have just been around at the time of his vanishing without actually playing a part in it, but Sarah kept telling her friend that there was something they were not seeing yet. He just had to trust her investigator's instinct. Or better yet, he could hand the matter back to the Brigadier once he had returned from Geneva. Harry was just not cut out for this kind of work, although he always tried his best.

Sarah listened to his news with great interest every time he rang her up. And in return for the latest updates from UNIT, she always told him something about her and the Doctor's new lives at the university.  
It was funny in a sense, because for once she had absolutely nothing unusual to report. She was a first semester student like any other, went to the open day events like any other, and began to study like any other. The only difference was that she felt less like a student and more like an investigator undercover – but she was getting used to the pace and duties of a student's life over time. She had never imagined that she would be welcomed by the student body as open-heartedly as she was and it was a great feeling to be among people of intellect and understanding. Three weeks in, and the former journalist found herself enjoying the almost daily trips to the university of Amberton. However, even though she had a very easy time to make friends almost wherever she went, Sarah knew surprisingly little about her fellow students.

The reason for that was probably the simple fact that she spent the majority of her time at the Doctor's side in her new function as his assistant. This meant that as long as she was not running errands for him and as long as she was not sitting in another professor's lecture, she could either be found in the Doctor's office taking care of some forms or student's request, or walking around the campus with him. Admittedly, Sarah was often within his proximity even on days where there were not as many duties to attend to. But it was not for the reason alone that she had begun to feel a little protective about him: His students would agree with Sarah any time that he was great company. He was quite popular among the student body for his humorous, happy-go-lucky nature and his ability to make dusty old topics sound interesting again.

Over time, and whenever his assistant found that it did not help much to prod him for more stray memories of the man he really was, Sarah told the Doctor about some of the cases she had investigated in the past. Things that had happened on Earth and had nothing to do with UNIT; Things alien life had never been involved in. Not every case Sarah had ever worked on had ended in a big revelation, but her older friend was almost always listening with great curiosity nonetheless – save for a few instances where he was working on something which required his full attention, of course. Sometimes, he would point out to her little details and conclusions she had not drawn at the time she used to work on the articles mentioned, but still Sarah enjoyed to challenge his intellect with all these little discoveries she had made around Great Britain: He had a clever remark to almost anything.

Things had settled into a daily routine she had never believed the Doctor would ever submit himself to. Arriving at the university at half past seven in the morning, listening to two lectures, a bit of spare time to work on other things, lunch at eleven, office time, then more lectures until five in the afternoon and some more studying until seven, when she would eventually part ways with him until the next day. Although courses and appointments varied throughout the week, it was a steady order and the Doctor, whom she knew as someone who was a mortal enemy of this, had somehow come to accept it. Same for the bureaucracy, responsibilities, and so-called petty little problems he had to deal with everyday.

But right now, it was probably for the better like this. She had an easy time keeping an eye on him, Harry was not as much under pressure to think of a solution to his current state and, as Sarah found, it was nice to have a bit of normality for once.

Yet there was change in the air.

On a Wednesday afternoon, Sarah had found in their office the documents which the Doctor should have taken with him to the lecture he was holding just at that time. Since he must have forgotten them and she had a bit of spare time, his assistant hurried across the campus to help him out. But as she arrived at the lecture room, she found the door standing wide open. Already before stepping in, Sarah saw that the professor for planetary sciences was not where she had expected him to be. What was worse, was that aside from a handful of students, who were using the room as a quiet place for studying, his listeners were absent as well.

"Where's Dr. Smith..?", Sarah asked into the room, hoping for an answer from someone. Even after several weeks, she did not like to use his makeshift name, but the other students knew him only by this one.

A girl about her own age came towards her down the stairs with an upset look on her face. Sarah recognized her, because she had bumped into her frequently ever since she had joined the student body. The slightly younger woman shared most of her courses with her and had helped her out on a few occasions as well. She had even been around on the day Sarah had found the Doctor at the university. Her name was Clara... although Sarah had not yet memorized her last name. Osgood, Oswald or something the like…

"You're supposed to know where your uncle is, don't you?", asked Clara reproachful. Her voice had an unpleasant sour tone.

"Uh..." The professor's assistant lost her current train of thought for a moment when she heard her own words out of someone else's mouth. On a previous occasion, the fellow student had curiously asked why a first semester student was so keen on working with a professor and Sarah – since she had looked for a cheap and quick explanation – had carelessly lied that the Doctor was her uncle. It had been the last name which made that seem so obvious. She sort of regretted it now, because apparently the lie had stuck with Clara, and that meant it was already spreading through the highly active university grapevine.

While Sarah fought down the urge to smack herself on the forehead, Clara crossed her arms, sighed, and then finally explained to her what had happened in the lecture hall. "He's called the lecture off.", she said. "Came in, struggled for about 10 minutes to stay focused on today's topic and then just decided… that it was too beautiful a day to spend inside." As she spoke, Clara shook her head in disbelief of the professor's neglect of his responsibilities of teaching.

"Oh, not again..." The assistant rolled her eyes. A similar thing had happened once before already, barely a week ago, with a different class of his. She had accepted it back then as something he had done on whim, but if he had any intention to make this a habit, he could be heading into serious trouble.

"Again?", Clara wondered for a short moment, but then went straight back to topic "You know, you should give him a ticking-off some time. This isn't school; some of us actually want to learn something."

Sarah nodded. "Oh, I will talk to him right away. And if he isn't around for next week's lecture, I'll drag him into the room myself!" She sided with her fellow student on the topic. University was voluntarily – and although there were plenty of lazy students around, the Doctor was not necessarily making more friends by giving them some time off.

Probably with the image of Sarah dragging the much taller man into the room by his ear on her mind, Clara smiled at her. "You do that.", she replied.

"I'll be seeing you at _Politics_ then." Before walking back out of the lecture hall, Sarah told her good-bye very briefly. They would be sitting next to each other in the same lecture later today, anyway.


	13. Bohemian (Ep3)

If the Doctor had been right about one thing, then that it really was a beautiful late autumn day. The air was cool, but the sun was bright and warmed the skin right through. Aside from a number of fluffy clouds, the sky was painted in fantastic shades of blue. Sarah walked across the campus, keeping her eyes peeled for a professor who would be strolling absent-mindedly along the pathways between the green spaces. Once the young woman had reached the middle of the campus, she sighed and stopped while she let her gaze wander some more. There was a big, old beech tree standing in one of the grassed areas. It was that kind of tree that had been growing there without the intervention of humans for hundreds of years and its trunk must have split in the middle early on, so that it had grown into what might be mistaken for two trees sharing the same set of roots. Sarah imagined that it was a great place for students to climb on and sit under during the hotter days of summer. This late in autumn, its green leaves had turned to bright orange and red tones, but as it seemed, the place amidst its branches had not become any less inviting.  
Sarah had to look twice to discover the man wearing a brown suit lying in the wide fork of the beech's split trunk.

As she walked through the damp grass over to him, she clearly recognized the Doctor, but he was so lost in thought that he failed to notice her approaching. In his lap lay a copy of Jules Verne's _**'Around 'The World In Eighty Days'**_ , which he must have finished reading sometime earlier. His assistant, who stood now at the tree's roots also noticed a big chestnut he was rolling around in the palm of his hand while he was staring at the rustling leaves above him.

"Doctor!", Sarah called for his attention. "I hope you are aware you'll be getting yourself in trouble with the dean if you keep skipping your lectures."

He jerked up his head and finally caught sight of her. "Oh, hello, Sarah!", he greeted her with joy. "Yes, I know. But the weather is so fantastic today, I thought it would be a shame for all of us to rot indoors."

She pressed the documents she had brought with her close to her chest and rubbed her arms through the cloth of her shirt after a light breeze had touched her skin. The wind was just about cold enough to remind her that it was still autumn. If it was not for the sleeveless sweater she was wearing on top, she might have been freezing. Sarah shot the Doctor a cautionary look after she had heard his half-hearted excuse. "If it's fresh air you're after, you could have just held the lecture outside."

The smile on his face disappeared. Instead he frowned at her and looked so very displeased all of a sudden. Since he was not arguing, Sarah guessed that he was already aware it would have been the better thing to do. "That's not it, is it?", she asked sympathetically, hoping that he would tell her what was really going on. "I thought you were serious about your job, so why are you doing this then?"

"I am serious about my job!", he insisted, crossed his arms and looked back up at the treetop.

Sarah stepped even closer to the tree and climbed on a thick root to meet his level. "Then I suppose, that you sent the students home because you like them so much?" Her melodic, quiet voice had an almost mocking tone to it.

As he turned back towards her, he blinked surprised to find her smiling straight into his face. "Sarah, tell me: Have you ever thought of…", he suddenly began to ask in all seriousness, but then paused dramatically as though he had to double-check his phrasing. "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to leave everything behind and to venture out into the world?"

"Oh, I see…! Is that what you want to do...?" She did not entirely understand why it came as such a surprise to her, when really, this question he had posed, described the very nature of the Doctor. Maybe Sarah had begun to enjoy having him around in the boring everyday life a little too much.

The Doctor propped himself up on his elbows as he continued to tell her his reasons. "You've told me all those amazing little stories of the places you've been investigating and I've just realized that for half of my life all I've done is this: To teach others about a planet I know mostly out of dusty old books. The real Earth is happening out there, in life, away from work." His eyes revealed a shimmer of admiration for the stories with which Sarah had inadvertently inspired him. A lot of humans probably felt just like this, and he was among those who already had a job that allowed for a bit of diversity every once in a while! But it was just not enough, it seemed.

"Doctor, I've only been around Britain, that's nothing special...", she partially lied to underplay the things she had told him about, with a sheepish smile on her face. If only he would stop thinking of his own adventures as bedtime stories, he would understand what she meant…

"Of course it is, because it's not just about going to a place! It's about the people you meet as well.", the Doctor corrected her. "I could take a trip, say for example, to the sea, and find it absolutely boring. But if I went there and got myself involved in a protest against whaling, I bet that I would have a very interesting story to tell on my return." He grinned excitedly as he pictured what kind of troubles he could wind up in.

"Oh, I don't know… Depends on so many things, doesn't it?", Sarah wondered worriedly, because she deemed it a little early for him to leap into danger again just yet – although if the Doctor suddenly wanted to fight whaling, she would not want to be a whaler.

He might have noticed something about the tone of her voice, because he tried to react to her notion of worry, even though he clearly had no clue what was really going on in the back of his assistant's mind. "Don't get me wrong, Sarah. I still love to share my knowledge with the students. But how much better would it be to share my experiences, hm?"

Sarah nodded in silent agreement, because she deemed it the right thing to do, for anyone, human or not.

Yet after he had sat up in the tree's fork, he told her something she had never thought he would ever admit like this again. "One day I have to face the fact that I'm 42 years old, and if I want to travel I would better do it now." With such a humourless, blank stare towards the sky, he made it sound like it was one of the greatest confessions ever to have been voiced by him.

In the meantime, his companion had to stifle a laugh. She realized how incredibly disrespectful it was for her to laugh at him, but in her memories she still heard him saying, all dramatically: _"...It means that I have lived for something like 750 years!"_ To see him go through the same realization again, just with a different phrasing, was amusing her to no end. Oh, once he had his memories back, she would not let hear him the end of it!

As he looked into her face, however, the smile she tried to suppress was still showing.  
"That's not funny.", he glared at her cautionary.

"Sorry, Doctor. I don't mean to laugh, really.", Sarah apologized quickly, shrugged, but unfortunately the smile was spreading on her face now despite her best efforts. "It's just; _You're not_ _THAT_ _old._ What's 42 years, after all?"

"I know, right!?", he immediately joined in the denial, but then failed to hold back on a grin himself, which caused the two of them to chuckle together about each other's silliness.

"Have you seen Professor Scott of the English studies? He's younger than you."

"Gosh, the man looks like Mother Theresa!" And with that, ever as delighted to add one on top, he had her giggling uncontrollably.

Once Sarah had regained a bit of seriousness – not as easy as you might think when someone was grinning at you like the Cheshire Cat – she attempted to get back on topic. "Doctor, I can understand very well that you find routine boring, but it means stability, you know?", she then argued. "I don't know what I would have done without a place to return to between my travels as a journalist. Besides, it's expensive. And where will you take the money from once you've quit university? You're not exactly a rich man… You'd have to make a living on the road."  
Unlike him, Sarah knew very well that he had only just begun to create himself an existence on this planet. This meant that, right now, he owned close to nothing, apart from a few clothes and a mattress to sleep on in that tiny, unfurnished flat he lived in at the moment. He didn't mind, though, always arguing to her that other people had it worse than him, and that things would be looking up once he had put the first semester behind him.

"I know Sarah… It's just a daydream, I couldn't afford it anyway. Not money-wise and not regarding my responsibilities, either.", the Doctor surprisingly agreed, then looked back up at the rustling leaves above him. "I still like the idea though, to be a _Phineas Fo_ _gg_ kind of adventurer, one day, maybe..."

"Or _**the Doctor**_.", added his companion.

"Now, don't be silly, Sarah. I keep telling you, I'm no such hero. I just want to get around more.", he humbly explained to her as he picked the Jules Verne novel back up and pushed himself off the tree. "But I look at you and think about how your life has been so much more exciting than mine! You've already been to oil rigs and nuclear power plants and military bases, you fought governments and infiltrated secret societies – with the power of words, not weapons!"

Although she felt greatly honoured, it was also quite strange to see him impressed by her lesser achievements on Earth.  
"There's still nothing special about it.", argued Sarah, who, after all, saw in him the much greater being he no longer believed he was. "You can do just the same, more even, clever man that you are." She gave him her best smile to express her admiration.

"Hm. I'm certain.", the Doctor self-confidently agreed and chuckled.

"But for now, I think you just need a change of air. You should be going out to town more often.", suggested Sarah. "You know, these little everyday stories you're talking of are all around us, you just have to look for them."

"Yes, you're right about that." He stepped off the tree's roots, then walked a few steps away before turning back to her. "Well, I ought to be getting back to my office. The draft for the exam won't write itself."

Just in the moment he had said it, he threw something small over to Sarah, and she, always quick to react, caught the object in her palms. However, her brain had just forgotten that she still needed both of her arms to hold the documents with and so she accidentally took a funny stance. In her hands was the chestnut the Doctor had thrown over to her, but with her elbows she was desperately pressing the papers to her chest to keep them from falling into the damp grass, and one small move could ruin it all now.

"Whoops!", he laughed at her display, but did not bother to come to her aid. "Well, I'll be seeing you later then!" Instead, he just waved her good-bye and walked away.

"Doctor!", huffed Sarah.

The next day came and went, but the thought stuck with him. Despite of what he had told her, to become an adventurer once again was not just a fleeting daydream to chase after for the duration of a lunch break only. One time, Sarah sat with him in his office and noticed him looking out of the window like a bird trapped in a cage. It was right for him to be like that, she knew, but was still afraid of what would happen if he really was to fly away – figuratively speaking. Starting his journeys all over, would it not be as if he had accepted the loss of his identity once and for all, instead of hoping for it to return?

On the Friday evening of the same week, Sarah and the Doctor bumped into each other in the middle of town. It was a funny occurrence, because neither of them had planned for it and while she greeted him as cheerful as ever, he got quite a bit flustered about what to make of this accidental meeting. She was just running some errands – nothing special there – and the Doctor was on his way to the pub to meet some new faces, but they were not really interested to join the other. Sarah did not fancy the pub atmosphere at the time and he, obviously, found the running of errands even more boring than she did. Yet they stood for minutes in the same street, just to chat for a bit. It was on this occasion that the Doctor presented to her a recent purchase he was very proud of: Sarah laughed when she saw the piece of knitwear.  
It was an orange and brown striped scarf. Nowhere as long or as colourful as the one she had thought of at that moment, but it fitted him so well you might think he would have owned it for a long time already. It came as no surprise that he told her how he was never aware of his love of loved neck wear.  
As they spent some more minutes talking, Sarah noticed that the Doctor was still thinking about his recent interest in new experiences. The thought just continued to excite him, she could tell. He only needed to find a way to make it possible in this terribly complicated human world he lived in now.


	14. The Tale Of Two Half-Wits (Ep3)

The next Monday came, as Mondays always did – although no one ever wanted them to – and Sarah was already in the Doctor's office to forward a student's letter regarding the exam results of the last semester to the university office. The professor she was assisting was a bit late today, which was not as surprising if you considered how bored he had gotten with the daily routine.

When he eventually entered, it was about an hour later than usual and he looked tired and annoyed as he flopped into the big office chair at his desk. Sarah immediately noticed the new scarf wrapped around his neck. Even after he had hung his jacket, the scarf stayed on. His old habits caused Sarah to chuckle quietly to herself. Just as she intended to ask where that grouchy morning mood of his had come from, the question answered itself: The Doctor sneezed violently, then shook his head as if he had to recover from the strange and sudden motion his body had forced him into.

"Bless you!" Sarah called out. "Caught a cold, have you? I told you it was chilly outside."

At first he shot her a glare, but was then forced to avert another oncoming sneeze. Which he managed to do, albeit barely. "That's the fault of that chap, your friend, Harry.", the Doctor finally got out. "I told him not to let go of the rope until I had secured it, but he wasn't listening." Since he was talking now anyway, the sneeze he had prevented earlier eventually got the better of him.

"Bless you again!", his assistant replied with instinctive politeness, before she picked the conversation back up. "What rope? How come you've met Harry and I don't know any of it?" Since she considered herself part of a team, naturally, she didn't like to think that she had been left out.

"We took a boat trip this weekend.", her sniffling friend continued to explain. "I had this idea, that, maybe I could discover sailing for me. Since you told me that Harry was trained at the Royal Navy, I figured he might know someone with a boat who wouldn't mind me messing about with. He liked the idea so much that he wanted to join. _Hasn't set a foot on a ship for so long, he might have_ _become a landlubber_ , he said." After rubbing his nose with a handkerchief, the Doctor lifted himself back up from his chair to fetch a book from one of the shelves. All of his movements looked as though he was dragging himself, quite unwilling to do anything but to drop down and sleep for three days in a row.

Sarah leaned with her elbows on her very own desk and watched him. Quite honestly, she felt a little jealous not to have been invited to their boat trip. "Why didn't you call me up? You know, I'm always in for an adventure!"

"Ha ha! Be glad that we did not!", called out the Doctor as he returned to the office chair. "You're always the one who keeps complaining about the cold and wet weather. We knew you wouldn't enjoy it. And, as it turned out, neither did we!" After arranging a few papers and the book he had fetched, he turned around on the chair to face her. "We weren't going far, just from Brighton out to the sea and then back again, nothing too exciting, with that little sailing boat of Harry's former instructor, a man called Oscar. And thankfully he came with us, too, or things might have gone from bad to worse.", told the Doctor his story, "He left the two of us to the sailing. And so, at one point, Harry was holding a rope – the one which I was just securing with a professional knot. But moments before I was finished, he let go – there was a gust of wind and as the lower yardarm came around, it knocked the two of us straight off the boat into the water." He finished the explanation with a grand sweeping gesture.

"Ah! So that's where you caught your cold.", Sarah figured.

"Oscar fished both of us out the water just minutes after.", the Doctor continued sourly and shivered as he remembered his unintentional swimming lesson in the icy sea. "He called the two of us half-witted fools, dropped us off at Brighton harbour as soon as he could, and, after arguing with Harry about whose fault it was all the way back, I spent the rest of the afternoon in front of his fireplace trying to warm myself up again."

"Hm… And what was his opinion on the matter?"

"Who's? Harry's?"

"Yes."

The university professor shrugged with a lack of understanding. "He claimed that I couldn't tie a proper sailor's knot! Can you believe that? I mean, obviously, _HE_ didn't wait until I was done with it!"

With a lot of effort, the young woman managed to suppress a giggle. That bickering between the two would have been worth enough for her to take that trip to the sea despite the harsh weather. Judging by the ways she knew him, Sarah guessed that the Doctor was mostly just upset about the misadventure, or accident as it were, and merely looking to Harry to find a scapegoat. As he attempted to return to the documents on his desk, he just had to fight down another sneeze, followed by a coughing fit this time. Having watched him long enough now, his assistant generously decided to ease his suffering. "How about I prepare some hot tea for this poor, sick sea dog?", she suggested teasingly and chewed on the cap of her pen for a bit while she awaited his reply.

"I would be very grateful." His voice sounded about as glad as he was tired and annoyed by the illness. For once, he could not even be bothered to smile.

Sarah just got up from her chair to go and fill the office's own kettle with water, when the telephone on her desk rang. Although she hesitated a moment, now that he had almost walked past it already, she eventually decided to pick up after all. "Dr. Smith's office at Amberton university, Sarah Jane Smith speaking.", the assistant politely named the line the caller was connected to.

"Good morning, Sarah. How do you do?", greeted her the familiar voice of the other unlucky sailor, Harry Sullivan. Maybe less surprisingly, he sounded a bit raspy.

"Well, how _do_ _you_ _do_? You don't sound too well." Sarah glanced back at the sick professor, who now realized that this conversation would probably take a while longer and got up himself to do what she had set out to do for him. "Never mind, Sarah. I'll prepare some for us, then.", he said regarding the tea as he walked across the room. Sarah thanked him, covering the receiver for but a moment before she turned her attention back to Harry.

"It's just a bit of a sore throat, nothing to worry about.", the young officer quickly explained. "I took a dip in the sea on the weekend when I shouldn't have."

"Oh, I've heard all about it already.", his friend chimed in, "And by the way, I'm siding with your skipper. You two have probably been too busy bickering to notice it was the fault of both of you!" Sarah lectured not only Harry, but the former time traveller by accident, too.

The Doctor was not out of the door yet as he heard her words and stopped to shoot her an annoyed glare.  
"Is that Harry?", he demanded to know, but then waved his own question aside. "For your sake, I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear your remark right now..." With this grouchy mumbling he eventually left to get the water for the tea.

Harry, too, denied the assistant's accusation.  
"We weren't bickering, Sarah. Have you ever seen me bicker with anyone?", he asked calmly.

"Do you expect an honest answer to that?"

"Ah, well… I suppose not.", the Lieutenant answered after a moment's hesitation, then verbally shrugged the topic off. "Any way, don't take it too seriously, old thing. The common cold is far more annoying than lethal these days."

"I'm not taking it seriously. And I'm also still not an _'old thing'_ , Harry!"

==== ==== Harry Sullivan ==== ====

Of course, she had to remind him. But he was already aware how annoyed Sarah got when he called her this, and so Harry smiled to himself, in total awareness that she could not see him at the other end of the line. The way she got upset, almost artificially, had something charming about it, which made it difficult to resist the temptation to tease her every once in a while.

"I'm calling because I have some news and I actually might require the Doctor's help on the case again.", he finally got to the topic he had wanted to tell her about from the start. "You remember when I told you the minister had reappeared out of nowhere? Well, just as UNIT went to finally interrogate him on his vanishing, he strangles his secretary and flees."

"I thought he was a victim, not a culprit...?" asked Sarah, perplexed.

"Yes. Well, no. Obviously not.", Harry quickly changed the subject to get the other recent discovery out before more questions would spring up he could barely answer. "And it gets even stranger. We had a break-out of our storage room."

"I suppose you're telling me this because no one has been locked in there?"

"Of course not. It's all dust and old boxes in there. But the lock was clearly broken from the inside of the room.", he explained briefly at first, then elaborated on the matter as he thought back on his earlier visit to the storage room with Benton. "But here's the thing… it was the storage where we also kept the mirror that had been retrieved from another case of vanishing. And we've just found the minister's, too. They were both in there – Well, they still are." The facts revealed nothing, not the slightest clue to a connection between the strange events and the mirrors, yet there was an undeniable feeling deep inside of Harry now that there had to be one. And he was usually quite a rational person. After all, he had been the one who had pledged to stop looking for a half-blind piece of framed silverware until just a day ago. "So, now either I'm getting paranoid or there's something seriously wrong with mirrors these days...", the Lieutenant admitted to his strange feeling of worry.

At first, the woman at the other end of the line remained quiet, which led him to wonder if she was already working to find the missing link in the case. But all she eventually said was: "Hm… Sounds like you could use a second opinion."

Out of the background noises Harry heard through the phone, he noticed the sound of a door opening and closing.  
"Indeed I could.", he agreed with Sarah and realized that she must be about as clueless as he was himself. After all, he knew he was not particularly clever or particularly well-informed, and could not hold a candle to the things the Doctor was capable of – even at his worst of times, hence Harry's following suggestion. "Last time I checked there was nothing out of the ordinary with them, but maybe our professional knows something. They could be otherworldly contraptions or portals into another dimension. What do you think, Sarah?" Harry knew well that the Doctor's messed up memory might fail him. However, their last joint investigation had brought their attention to the mirrors in the first place.

"You think the Doctor could figure out what's so strange about the mirrors?", the pretty woman echoed.

"Yes, I wonder!", the Doctor's loud and distinctive voice suddenly rang out. There was an unmistakably annoyed tone to it. "Hand me the phone for a moment, will you?" The phone line cracked for a moment as he took the receiver from Sarah's hand, seemingly without awaiting her consent. "Hello, Harry! I don't know what you're investigating this time, but I'm not keen on getting knocked over my head because of some stupid old mirror again.", announced the Doctor with a voice that was overly cheerful and clearly mocked the younger man's request.

"But, uh, Doctor..." stammered the UNIT member, yet he was not given the time to formulate his thoughts into an argument.

"Doctor nothing!", he was interrupted harshly, then the Doctor's tone of speaking softened again. "Listen, you're a pretty good investigator yourself, aren't you? And I'm absolutely certain I don't know any more about mirrors than you do. So be a good chap and help yourself this time, all right?"

Before Harry had another chance to protest, he suddenly hung up. Although the Lieutenant was aware of what had happened to to them on the weekend – and that the Doctor still thought it had been his fault – he had not expected him to be resentful still. They had already figured out how pointless it was to blame each other by the time they had made it to his place. Half an hour afterwards and each of them had sat quietly in an armchair in front of his fireplace while _The Generation Game_ had been playing on TV.

Still dumbfounded by the rude end of the conversation, Harry looked at the telephone wondering what he should do next. Then, unexpectedly, it rang again. "Hello?", he answered.

"Harry?" It was Sarah who had called him back. After a short hesitation, she whispered to him. "Don't mind his mood. He's just grouchy because he's caught a cold on your trip."

"I say, that explains that then."

"You know, of course I'm willing to help out.", she offered. "I won't make it just now, though. Is it all right if I pass by, say… at three in the afternoon?"

"Of course it is. No need to rush." He smiled to himself. "Mirror don't have legs to run, eh, Sarah?"

There was a chuckling coming from the other end of the line, and, somewhere further in the background the noise of a man coughing. "Not yet anyway. I'll be seeing you later then!", Sarah said good-bye.

"Until then. And thank you." And after that, Harry hung up, too, then leaned back in his office chair, hands folded over his lab coat. It was long until the afternoon and although he greatly admired Sarah's keen eye and sense for finding clues, he had a few doubts whether she would be able to make something of it all. But, who knew for sure? Maybe the next clue was more obvious than he thought.

The medical officer was feeling a little uneasy with this case on his mind and the apparent lack of a lead. He didn't have to work on it if he didn't want to, he knew. The Brigadier was long back from Geneva and if Harry would only bring up a reason, he probably could have persuaded him to assign another task to him. But ever since the Surgeon Lieutenant had been involved he felt a certain responsibility to bring the case to a conclusion, even more so now that someone had been murdered.


	15. A Reflection Comes To Life (Ep3)

On a whim, Harry decided he could take another look at the mirrors for himself. Yet he was not left all alone with what he set out to do. As he walked down one of UNIT's corridors towards the storage, he bumped into Benton, who just so decided to tag along and only a minute later, they found themselves standing in the open door of the dusty storage room once more. Exactly like the other time, there was no hint of strange activities going on, except maybe for the broken lock.

The minister's mirror, which had been added to the small collection recently, was indeed a gorgeous, although very time-worn piece of wall decoration. Its frame was carved into beautiful floral-like patterns and had originally been painted golden. In some place however, the paint had come off and now revealed dark brown wood underneath. The mirror had been found by UNIT when they had gone to investigate the murder, but surprisingly, again, no one knew just how the object had found its way back to the building it was stolen from. Some of the people at the minister's residence claimed the owner himself had brought it with him, but even they were not certain.

"I never quite understood what it is that draws people towards mirrors.", Benton began to ramble while Harry knelt in front of the one with the golden frame to begin the inspection. "I suppose it's old-fashioned vanity, isn't it?"

The mirror's silver surface was full of scratches and although it still showed the medical officer's reflection, it was a largely blurred image, unable to reproduce his features in great detail. For some reason, which he did not dwell on for long, Harry was a little relieved not to be staring back into his own eyes all too plainly. It seemed to make the investigation a bit easier, if not less unnerving, so to speak. Very quickly Harry discovered a triangular shape in the mirror, the same one he vaguely remembered having seen in the manufacturer's. The other time, he had assumed the ochre colour to be the mirror's backside shimmering through a missing piece in the silver layer of the glass surface.

Harry got up to check the second mirror for the damage which he deemed to be identical. And, indeed, it was very similar. Both triangular shapes had the same colour and approximate size, but were not located in the same section of their respective mirrors. Frowning, he stepped back to compare once again. It was only then that he noticed that these shapes were more than just flat images. A look from afar revealed them to be the reflection of three-dimensional, ochre coloured tetrahedra about the size of one's hand, approximately. One of them, according to the reflection in the minister's mirror, had to lie underneath the shelf to its opposite, and the other one sitting on top of one of the boxes on another shelf. Curious, Harry began to search the shelf for the strange pyramid-like thing.

Seemingly unaware of his discoveries, Benton was walking around the room and, in his own way, looking for clues himself, although with much less determination than Harry. The Warrant Officer stopped in front of the manufacturer's wooden-framed mirror. "It's probably just natural for women to be a bit vain, but personally speaking, I have seen enough of myself after the obligatory look into the shaving mirror each morning." He watched himself chuckle in the mirror's reflection.

Yet Benton's idle chat remained disregarded by Harry, who simply failed to find the tetrahedron in the shelf which should have been all too plain to see. He reached out his hands and touched each of the boxes' covers just to double-check, but there was nothing there, not even something invisible. It was a trick, he had to realize, a trick by the mirror. But his curiosity was not satisfied yet. "Benton, would you help me to move this thing a little to the left?", the Medical Officer asked his helper, but as he placed his hands on the frame and turned to look for Benton, the soldier was not around any more. While he had been looking around the storage, the other UNIT member must have wandered off somewhere.

"Never mind...", Harry quietly said to himself. The mirror was just very unhandy, but not too heavy for one person to move, especially since he just intended to push it across the floor far enough until the tetrahedron would have been gone out of the mirror's view. This little experiment turned out more interesting than expected, because once Harry had moved the mirror over, the strange object remained out of view at first, but was then reappearing in front of his eyes in the mirror's reflection. The tetrahedron re-integrated itself into the picture of the room like it should have always been sitting on the shelf. It might have been mistaken for another curious object in UNIT's storage, but the truth was that this object didn't even exist to begin with…

A small shiver ran down Harry's spine. This was definitely unusual and strange, and worse of all, it solidified the feeling he has had ever since the murder.

Suddenly, a pounding noise coming from behind caught his attention. He rose to his feet and turned to see where it was coming from as Harry gasped at the sight he was met with. To his opposite was still the manufacturer's mirror on the table, but inside of it was the reflection of Warrant Officer Benton trying to break out. Its counterpart in the real world, however, was still missing and the face of the man looked distressed; His mouth formed silenced calls for help!

"Benton!", Harry called for him, fearing that this was no mere reflection, but the man himself.

The soldier was aware of his presence, tried to reach out and pounded on the mirror's inside to break free. The glass seemed to shake, but it was holding. Instinctively, Harry's eyes searched the room for something heavy he could break the mirror's surface with, but just as he took a step towards the opposite shelf, something suddenly grabbed at his ankle, causing him to fall. Lying on the floor, he turned to look at what had caught his foot when he was met with yet another disturbing sight. Out of the minister's half-blind mirror leaned a copy of himself! It looked unfinished, with blurred edges where there should be a stark contrast, and lacked the finer features of his face, like the lively shimmer in his eyes and the unique twist of each of his short curls. The arm of this three-dimensional reflection of his was protruding from the mirror and pulled on Harry's ankle now. It attempted to yank him towards the mirror, into this other dimension beyond. Fearful, he tried to crawl away, yet the copy of him possessed a supernatural strength. Harry kicked at the hand of his attacker and his fingernails scraped over the hard cement floor in his attempt to find a hold somewhere. He was not ready for life in two dimensions! Only after he somehow managed to cling on to one of the storage rack's legs, he managed to free his ankle from the hold. Panting more out of shock than stress, the Medical Officer pulled himself up by the frame of the rack.

His reflection attempted once more to leave the mirror world, but failed to stretch its limbs further out of the frame. It quietly retreated then, and just vanished within the next second to leave behind only the picture a mirror should show.

In fear that it might come back, Harry hurried back to the antique and threw it over with such a force that a shattering was heard. But he was in no mood to lift it back up just to check whether he had managed to break it or not. The important thing was that the reflection could no longer stare back at him! But what about Benton? As Harry jerked his head around, the manufacturer's mirror in which he had seen his fellow UNIT member was back to normal as well.

"Mister Benton?", the Medical Officer called out again, but there was no reaction. Was the imprisonment also just a trick of the mirror? He secretly hoped that Benton would just appear around a corner, saying that he had wandered off and gotten lost around the storage. But Harry's wish was not granted. Instead, for all he knew, Benton might still be trapped in the mirror world and had simply disappeared from sight. These strange, inexplicable happenings… only one man sprung to Harry's mind who could help with this.

After slamming the storage door shut behind him, Harry ran to the next wall phone as fast as he could and immediately dialled the number of Dr. Smith's office again.

"Dr. Tony Smith at Amber-", the deep voice of a man answered, but Harry did not let him finish.

"Doctor!", he called out immediately. "Benton has just been swallowed by a mirror, and it almost dragged me in, too!"

"...Are you feeling quite all right, Harry?", the Doctor wondered about the younger man's panicked tone.

"Yes, I do! The mirrors – there's something seriously wrong with them!"

"You sound like you've woken from a nightmare.", the Doctor calmly decided. "You're a man of science, too, aren't you? You ought to know better than most people that mirrors don't attack anyone. It's not like you to jump at shadows."

Harry sighed annoyed. Right now he was not in the mood to accept the Doctor's loss of memory and even less having to discuss the authenticity of the matter with him. "Nonsense, Doctor! It's not a nightmare! I know what I've seen! I say, the mirror's reflection came alive in front of my eyes!"

In the background of the line, Sarah rose her voice. "What's the matter?", she asked worriedly.

"Harry's stammering something about people disappearing through the looking glass, like the little Alice!", replied the Doctor to her, with a chuckle in his voice.

"Let me talk to him." The line cracked as Sarah forcefully took the receiver out of the former time traveller's hands. "Don't laugh at it.", she sternly requested of him, before she turned to her friend at UNIT. "What has happened, Harry?"

"Benton and I were looking at the mirrors by ourselves, when I turned around and suddenly he was trapped in one of the things. I was almost pulled into one by my own reflection, too!", he repeated for her, a little more clearly this time around. "I managed to destroy one of them – I think – but now Benton has vanished completely, and I don't know what to do with the cursed things!"

"If he's still trapped, you better don't break another one...", Sarah figured and Harry pictured her furrowing her brows in worry. "I think I better come over quick as I can."

"I'd be much obliged, Sarah."

"While I'm on the way, you should tell the Brigadier about it.", she suggested.

Although it was invisible to her, Harry nodded.

"Yes, of course.", he agreed.

==== ==== Sarah-Jane Smith ==== ====

"Take care!", the young woman advised as she put the phone down. Within seconds, she collected her bag and autumn coat under the watchful eyes of the Doctor.

"You're leaving already? And _YOU_ are telling me not to skip courses?", he actually dared to question her motives.

But Sarah did not bother to answer. She just shot him an annoyed glare and shook her head at him as she hurried to leave the office.  
"What, Sarah? What is it?" Despite his disapproval, he made no attempt to stop her from going.

He did not understand, and unfortunately, Sarah could not expect him to just yet. She might not have reacted much different a few years back if someone would have come and claimed to have been attacked by a common household object. But now, she knew that pretty much everything was possible, and that people rarely ever had to make these stories up.


	16. House Calls (Ep3)

Sarah floored the pedal as she drove out to the UNIT headquarters, where Harry and the Brigadier were already waiting for her. But for the ever unlucky medical officer, everything of interest to them was already a thing of the past by the time of her arrival. When he showed Sarah and his supervisor around the storage, they found one of the mirrors lying face down on the floor and another one sitting on top of a table, seemingly undisturbed. As they lifted the one Harry had claimed to have been attacked by, its shards fell out of the frame and clattered on the floor. Only a whole lot of glue could have fixed this mess.

Ever since the incident, Benton had not shown up again and so the three of them approached the remaining mirror with some caution. His reflection was not there, just the image of the non-existent tetrahedron, which Harry pointed out to them. As Sarah stepped closer to inspect the strange object, her friend linked arms with her. Apparently he was frightened to lose her to the mirror world as well…

But her inspection revealed nothing of use. She had no explanation for the object in the mirror or how something could break out of or into a two-dimensional world in the first place, which meant she was just as clueless as the rest of UNIT. The Brigadier, who then approached the matter from an aspect of security, suggested to put the mirror into a crate. The idea behind this action was that no one would find oneself staring into it by accident – and the crate would hopefully keep something from popping out as well.

For a while, Sarah pondered whether she should force the Doctor to come here and have a look at it. The tetrahedron was something absolutely and undeniably unusual – any scientist whose title was worth something ought to be intrigued by the mystery. But she had seen the mood he was in and felt that he could barely be bothered with university life right now, even less then with the businesses of UNIT… Just remember how harsh he had been to poor Harry!

As Sarah was thinking about the best action to take, a UNIT scientist was suddenly mentioned who used to work with the Doctor a long time ago. Liz Shaw, so the name Sarah had read in one of the old files during her search for the lost Time Lord. The last information UNIT had about her was that she had left them to work at Cambridge, but Miss Shaw would make a great replacement for the position of the scientific advisor now. With that fresh idea on his mind, the Brigadier decided that UNIT could make do very well without the Doctor's help for once and ordered Sarah and Harry not to drag him into it unless the case was turning into a global crisis. There were great talents on Earth after all!

It was also on this occasion that Sarah found herself revisiting the Doctor's old lab at UNIT. Not intentionally, but as she passed by, she could not help but to step inside for a moment. Although a few pieces of equipment had gone missing from it over time and a thick layer of dust laid on everything which remained, it looked for the most part still like it had a few years ago, almost as if the room was waiting for its former occupant to return. In one of its corners was a large empty space; It was the space the TARDIS would usually stand in when the Doctor was around. In her memory, Sarah saw the well-known police box materializing just in that spot, fitting into the corner as if it was part of the furnishings and that unique sound it always made, echoing through the room. The door opened, and in its frame appeared the Doctor. Older yet than the one at Amberton; a proper dandy with a shock of white hair and a gentle smile.

 _...Why did it seem so long ago all of a sudden?_

As Sarah was wandering around the laboratory by herself, she felt the cold brass of the fob watch in the pocket of her coat. For weeks now she was carrying the thing around wherever she went, because she had promised the Doctor not to lose it. It was important in one way or another, that she knew, but had not the slightest idea how to make the object reveal its secrets to her. The glow shining out of the cracked shell of the watch had changed over the course of time. Sarah had noticed how it had gotten stronger and stronger. Now that she was all by herself, she took the fob watch out of her pocket to inspect it again. Today, it was the strongest yet. Out of the crack poured a stream of glistening, golden light particles, bright and beautiful, but also strangely alien. For all she knew, it could be radiation of some kind. The young woman felt worry seeping into her insides once again. It was time she stopped to carry the watch around like it was nothing out of the ordinary. With that sort of mesmerizing glow, it was almost begging to be stolen now.

Back at the university, the former journalist struggled to explain the case to the Doctor, whereupon she found once again that his twisted set of memories made it difficult for him to believe the things that had actually happened to Harry. Still, she felt that a part of him wanted to trust her, because he was worried about the medical officer and her own involvement in those dangerous events. But while Sarah began to drive out to UNIT again and again and thus, spent less time at university, the Doctor stayed away from work more often, too. It was not because of the cold he had caught, though. No, that only kept him grouchy for a couple of days, but he would be in his office even if Sarah had to find him with his head on the desk, snoring.

As soon as the cold wore off, however, he began to take a great interest in the other fields of science represented at the university. The next time he skipped one of his lectures, Sarah was suddenly joined by him in a reading about the Anglo-Saxon history. He probably had no idea how lucky he was that she had been in no mood of making a spectacle about themselves when really she should have thrown him out of the hall single-handedly. When questioned about his behaviour, the Doctor merely attempted to explain it with his natural thirst for knowledge, but once his assistant tried to make the topic into an argument, he quietly fled the scene and was not seen again until long after lunch time of the same day. Whatever he was doing or planning now that took so much of his time, it must have something to do with his growing desire to go adventuring again, Sarah thought to herself.

Not before long, and the Doctor's assistant was forced to defend his personal wishes and dreams in front of the dean and his own students as well. Being his shield to responsibilities was no fun at all. More than once Sarah wished he could bring himself to deal with his own growing problems, but whenever she brought up the subject, he wanted to hear nothing of it – usually by pretending that he was too busy to pay attention to her. Was it making her cross? Of course it did, but then she never stayed mad for long. The Doctor she used to know had been just the same; Any trouble smaller than the end of the world was but a waste of his time and so Sarah was rather glad to find more pieces of his original personality breaking through the false identity.

Besides, it was not that the Doctor had gotten lazy or disappeared from university completely. Although the neglect of his responsibilities occurred more often than it should, he still spent some of his precious time to prepare courses and help the students. The door to his office might usually be locked, but if you were his assistant and already sitting inside the room, you might find him at the desk with his beak-nose stuck deep in a pile of books. The Doctor was so busy reading up on seemingly everything that sometimes, he was already at work even before she arrived in the morning and then he stayed late, too. He would simply refuse to go home at a time when she became tired already. Since she was worried, as usual, about his well-being, Sarah soon told him not to stay at university during the night, but whether he would listen to her advise or not, she eventually had to leave to him.

That he had not listened at all was then proved by one specific occasion...

It was the middle of the night. Half past midnight or some other ungodly hour, when suddenly the telephone at her aunt's place rang. Sarah had never liked the sound of the old telephone to begin with, but as she awoke, half-conscious lying in her bed and turning around with great unwillingness to look at the clock on her night stand, it sounded about five to ten times as annoying. From her bedroom, she could hear Lavinia getting up fairly quickly and hurrying downstairs to pick up while she was still wondering how someone could possess the impoliteness of making midnight-calls. Yet at last, Sarah's curiosity prevailed, and she forced herself out of bed, even if it was just to ask her aunt what was going on. It was dark and quiet in the house, but coming from the hallway on the ground floor, Sarah heard Lavinia telling, if not scolding, the caller that no, _Sarah Jane was not available and that he should be ashamed of calling at this time of night for anything else but an emergency_.

The Doctor's companion stood at the top step of the stairs, rubbing her eyes as she overheard the conversation. When Lavinia noticed her, she just signalled for her niece to go back to bed. But that did not quench her curiosity. "Who was it?", she demanded to know, upon which her aunt answered: "Some professor from that university you're going to. But never mind it, it was not important." And with these words spoken, she trotted back to her bedroom. Although Sarah was still very tired, when she heard that it had been the Doctor, she quickly decided that it was probably better to call back, whatever the reason. After all, Lavinia had been so rude to him, she might have cut him off before he could have voiced his concern. The younger Smith carefully climbed down the stairs and tip-toed to the telephone trying to make as little noise as possible before she dialled the office's number. "Doctor…?", she whispered just as she heard how someone picked up.

"Hello, Sarah!", greeted the Doctor her, loudly and cheerfully, and full of energy, too.

Sarah winced and wished he would keep that voice of his down, but then reminded herself that it only seemed so loud because the rest of the house was so very quiet at this time of day. "What is it? Why are you calling?"

"You remember me brining in a stack of newspapers yesterday, don't you? There was a torn out piece of the classified column between the papers, and it must have fallen out as I entered the office. Have you seen it? I spent the last hour or so searching high and low."

As the Doctor went on about the lost newspaper clipping and even began to tell her of the things he needed her to do for him after sunrise, Sarah let out a long, heavy sigh. In her half-asleep state, his words soon blended into each other and all that remained in her ears was a low, almost melodic buzz threatening to lull her into deep sleep again. Only when the receiver almost dropped from her hand, Sarah regained a brief moment of clarity. Clearing her throat, she interrupted the Doctor mid-sentence – because there was obviously no other way to stop him. "Doctor, may I remind you that it's the middle of the night?", she asked him and did not even bother to hide the annoyed tone in her voice.

"Yes, I am aware of that...", he told her, then hesitated. "Is there a reason you and your aunt keep reminding me of it?"

Sarah chuckled, drowsy as she was. Oh, that funny alien of hers could not make the connection! Then she sighed again. "People sleep at night, Doctor… And they need that sleep to have enough energy for the day...", explained Sarah very, very slowly.

"Oh, yes. Right.", he suddenly understood and just then, he finally lowered his voice. "I'm so sorry... Please go back to bed, Sarah, and forget I ever called."

"Hm-hm. For your sake, you better hope I will.", Sarah threatened him jokingly.

"...Good night, Sarah.", he whispered softly before eventually, he put his receiver down.

Shaking her head, his companion did as told and climbed the stairs back up to lie down again. How glad she was she had no appointments during the upcoming week-end!


	17. Clara Meets A Dapper Gentleman (Ep3)

==== ==== Harry Sullivan ==== ====

This time, as the door to the professor's office at Amberton opened, it was neither the Doctor nor his young assistant who entered the room, but their next closest common friend. For the first time Harry had found his way to the university of Amberton, but he had not come to meet the other time travellers, or else he might have picked a day when the two of them were actually present. On a Saturday morning, they usually were not. It did not matter that much, anyway, since the medical officer had arrived with the intention to collect yet another mirror and so bumping into his friends would have been but a nice bonus.

Harry admired the old-fashioned look of the office for a little while before stepping in. Sarah had already told him that the furniture really belonged to the Doctor's predecessor and how they had only inherited it. It was also her who had remembered that this previous professor's name was on the list of people who had vanished over a month ago. In this case, too, a mirror had been present, because in a corner of the room a small, simple frame had been leant against the wall. Since it was not facing Harry, it was so inconspicuous that he would have failed to notice it had he not specifically arrived to look for the mirror. Even Sarah had completely forgotten about it until recently, when the two of them had been pondering together about the stranger properties of these mirrors. But now, just as Harry approached the piece of decoration, another person appeared unexpectedly in the door frame behind him.

"Ooh! I also get curious when I find an unoccupied office.", exclaimed a female voice, which caused the former Royal Navy member to spin around.

He was met with the sight of a young, pretty woman with very dark brown hair shorter than Sarah's. Much like most of the other students she was wearing a red skirt and a dark jacket on top of a blouse. A perky smile spread on her lips after Harry had turned to face her. Something about that shimmer in her big brown eyes seemed so challenging that he felt almost a little bit intimidated.

"Oh.", he just replied at first before he found his speech again. "I'm not prying about if that's what you're thinking..."

As the woman walked into the room, Harry felt how she eyed him with interest. "No, of course you're not.", she jokingly replied before cocking her head, then asking: "You're looking for the Smiths, too?"

"Not really. I'm just here to retrieve the office mirror for them. I'm a friend of both, you see." He smiled and held out his hand to greet the stranger properly. "The name's Harry Sullivan."

"I'm Clara Oswald. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sullivan" She shook his hand, before she casually brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. For a few moments she just kept smiling at him, before she suddenly remembered the reason why she had come into the professor's office. "Wait, if you're a friend of Dr. Smith… would you mind to give him this for me?" Only now Harry noticed that she had been holding a small object in her hand the whole time. Out of the closed fist dangled the part of a chain. "It's a pendant I found on the desk of a lecture hall the other day and I believe it belongs to him. I really wanted to return it sooner, but I kept forgetting about it."

But it was not just a pendant. It was so much more. As Clara opened her palm, Harry immediately recognized the strange shape of the silver pendant. "You found the TARDIS key!", he blurted out in pleasant surprise.

She frowned at him, confused for but a moment. "What's a TARDIS?", she demanded to know.

"It's a, uhm… blue police box sort of… thing that's bigger on the inside? Very difficult to explain, really." A feeling of awkwardness crept into him as he struggled to find the words. He should not have mentioned the TARDIS at all, that was a mistake.

Thankfully, Clara did not seem to mind. She just chuckled. "You just made that up, didn't you?"

"Uh… yes." Harry nodded and laughed with her, just desperately trying to mask his lie. "Well, anyway. The old chap's probably looking for it already." As he held out his hand, Clara dropped the spade shaped key into it without hesitation.

"And you will make sure he gets it?", she questioned him then, whereas she raised her brows sceptically. "I mean, you _really_ are a friend of his?"

He blinked at her, surprised by the question. "Of course I am! We were at the Royal Navy together." The lie came almost a little too easily, which he only realized as he began to feel awkward again.

Clara's eyes widened and she quickly scanned his outfit again. "So you're a sea captain?"

"That's flattering, Miss Oswald, but no, I'm more of a Surgeon Lieutenant."

"Another doctor? Why, I don't think I can keep up with all the intellect this room attracts.", Clara laughed, then turned around to leave. "Not yet, anyway. Guess I'll better be off to study some more."

"All right. Good-bye, Miss Oswald. And good luck with the exams!"

"Thank you, Mr. Sullivan." Giggling quietly, Clara walked out of the office and pulled the door shut behind her.

Oddly enough, something about her happy nature reminded him of Sarah, although the feisty journalist had never shown as much interest in him – unless maybe she did it by the use of cheeky comments and jokes, in which case, he would have failed to notice it. Still it was delighting to meet someone whom he could still sort-of impress with his career choice.

Harry walked over to the corner to lift up the oval mirror. He barely dared to take a look, but even as he peered over the frame's edge, he could see the palm-sized tetrahedron shimmering in the reflection of the wallpaper.


	18. An Untimely End (Ep3)

==== ==== Sarah-Jane Smith ==== ====

It was the early afternoon of the following Sunday when the rattling and roaring of an engine noise attracted Sarah's attention. She went to the front of her aunt's house to look at Hillview Road from one of the upstairs windows. The noise was such that it left you thinking how lucky the driver of this vehicle had to be if he made it around the next corner. Had the car broken down on the side of the road at this very moment, that would have been no surprise. Yet although the engine noise disappeared, it had, in fact, not broken down. Merely parked in front of Lavinia's two story house was an old, black and battered looking Daimler car. There were dents in it and scratches Sarah could spot even from the upper level window, but at the same time, it was perfectly clean down to the hub caps. So although it was in a miserable state – who could tell what the poor machine had been through? – someone apparently still cared about it. As Sarah stood leaning on the windowsill watching the arrival of their visitor, the rest of the story unfolded before her.

The driver's door opened and out stepped the young woman's best friend. He had not spotted her yet, but she noticed him beaming proudly by the flashing of his teeth while he grinned to himself. Under his arm the Doctor carried a taxi cab sign which he was just about to install on the Daimler's roof. Was that the result of what he had been up to? It most certainly seemed that he had come to her place only to share his latest achievement with her. Wondering to herself where he meant to go with a taxi of his own, Sarah hurried downstairs to meet him on the street.

After hastily throwing one of her aunt's winter coats over her shoulders and slipping into a pair of heavy fur boots, the time travelling woman stepped outside. Today, it was very cold and the clear blue sky reflected in the polished paint of the car was a sign that temperatures would not be looking up soon.

"Found yourself a new everyday companion, have you, Doctor?", Sarah asked him jokingly as she neared.

"Good day, Sarah!", he greeted her, cheerful as always, just as he stepped down from the sill of the open car's door, having finished affixing the sign. "I certainly hope so! Tell me your opinion, Sarah. What do you think of it?"

Sarah hesitated for a moment, as her gaze was fixed on a particular big dent next to the left headlight.

"Honestly, I don't know what to say...", she carefully began. "When I heard you driving up, the engine sounded like it is in a pretty bad shape and it looks like it's been through a lot already."

"Well, yes, of course it has!", claimed the Doctor. "If it was new, it would be boring. A machine may have a bit of character, a bit of a past, don't you think?"

A smile forced its way on her face. The TARDIS had a whole lot of that, and it never quite worked as it should, either. "A bit of a mind of its own? Of course it should!", she full heartedly agreed, but saw herself forced to argue at least a little since she knew how often he had failed to bring her home in the past. "That is, as long as it's reliable...", she added after a brief pause.

"Oh, yes, yes it is!", he assured her, then shrugged while he shoved his hands into his pants' pockets. "Besides, beggars can't be choosers."

"It was the only one you could afford then, was it?", chuckled Sarah, amused by how he has made it seem like he had had a choice. "Would you rather have had a hackney?"

"Well, that doesn't matter.", he quickly waved her questions aside, apparently annoyed that she had to ask at all. But not before long the grin returned to his face as he then continued to explain what he planned to do. "This old thing here is just enough to be my ticket to the world. It's the solution which will allow me to travel."

"So you've become a taxi driver?", she figured.

"I'll have a car to get around, meet plenty of new people and make the money needed to get by all at the same time. Clever, wouldn't you say?" Quite obviously, he thought it was.

"Well, I like the idea, but what about the university...?" His assistant would hate to see all of her efforts go to waste. Least he could do was to finish the semester. "You're still a professor, remember?"

The smile on his face fell away at the mentioning of his work. "I posted my letter of resignation yesterday.", the Doctor told her. "Now, I realize that they probably want to talk me into sticking around longer, but I will see about that on Monday."

Sarah frowned at him. Of course, it was so easy to quit when you didn't have to look into the faces of the people you were disappointing. And just because of that, she was worried that maybe he would not even show up at Amberton the next Monday. Maybe, he would just leave…

"Are you sure about that? That this is really what you want to do?" The young woman looked at him with eyes pleading, as she suddenly realized that he might just leave her behind along with everything else – to start a new life on the road as the human he was now, unable to see that it was his true self which had driven him towards the decision.

Although he was not facing her directly, he shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. It seemed that he had intended to respond with a _'_ _Yes_ _'_ originally, but now that the question was out, he was suddenly less certain. Or maybe he thought that this answer was not meant for her to hear.

Just as the awkward silence began to settle between them, the distant noise of a propeller became noticeable. They raised their heads towards the sky only to spot a small, red biplane amidst the blue.

"Oh! Look, Sarah!", the Doctor suddenly called out, pointing at the flying machine. "Do you know what this is? That's the next adventure!" The grin had reappeared on his face as he turned back towards his companion. It didn't feel honest, but he was most certainly trying to make it look like it was.

"The plane? You're kidding!", Sarah sceptically replied. It seemed to her that he was merely looking for a cheap way to avoid the topic she had started, but as usual, he insisted to have things his way.

"Not at all! Do you know where it's come from? Where it will fly to? Aren't you curious?", he excitedly bombarded her with questions impossible to answer on the spot. As he hurried back to the open driver's door, his wide-eyed gaze remained on Sarah. "Don't you want to help me find out?", he finally invited her to join him on this so-called adventure.

There was no pondering for Sarah. If anything, it proved to her that he had no plans to abandon her in this ordinary life she had settled back into. She smiled benignly and sighed in relief. "Only if the taximeter stays off."

He pointed her towards the passenger's seat.  
"Oh, you'll always ride for free, my dear Sarah. That's a friendship bonus!"

And suddenly, all the time they had spent at university and the privileges they were about to throw away lost their importance. Deep down, Sarah only cared not to lose him. Especially while he was not himself again yet, seemingly so more vulnerable to his deadly foes than ever. After all, someone had to look after the Doctor, because he was so prone to getting himself into all kinds of trouble. Someone had to keep in touch with UNIT as well. And most importantly, he needed someone to share his fun with. So if he was still willing to keep her as his companion, she would gladly accept again.

It was such a silly thing to hunt after a plane. There was no good reason why they should do it, other than to find out where it would land, but maybe that was just the thing. Maybe it was so interesting, because it was such an insignificant reason. The plane would lead them somewhere, and they did not know where yet. Private property? A field in the middle of nowhere? A small airport? How far would they have to go? Which towns would they cross? It was such a harmless little adventure, but intriguing all the same. As someone once said: _'The journey is the reward.'_ It made her understand how little she really had ever seen of her own world.

While the Doctor was driving, Sarah kept looking out of the window, always trying not to lose the red biplane from her sight so she could direct him closer to it. The engine of the old Daimler rattled and roared loudly, but proved to be capable of bringing them further than just around the next corner. Because of many spontaneous changes in direction, the Doctor and Sarah found themselves at the end of a cul-de-sac road more than once, but always managed to back out and catch up with the plane just in time. Once they had left the cities and headed for the country roads, the two of them soon started to drift away from the direction the plane was taking, with no crossroads up ahead to change cardinal directions. On a whim, the Doctor made a risky decision and changed onto a dirt track just to keep up with the aviator. If they got stuck in a mud puddle so far away from the rest of civilisation, they would be in for a day trip back to the next town. But luckily, everything went well.

And, after an hour or maybe a little more since their departure, the plane's destination finally came into sight.

Sarah had no idea where they had ended up, because now they were far out on the countryside, probably somewhere to the East of South Croydon, but beyond any of the popular places she knew. The closest town nearby was more of an old village. Its thatched houses could be seen in the distance, beyond the meadows which were currently used as the grounds for a festival. There was one marked as a parking lot, and another two for small, privately owned aircraft to use as a runway. As they parked the old Daimler next to farmer's tractors and vehicles even more time-worn than the one the Doctor had bought, Sarah spotted their red biplane touching down. The wind they were met by upon leaving their car carried with it the sound of joyful chatter and the smell of hay, grilled foods and aeroplane fuel.

The two adventurers exchanged a happy smile before walking towards the white tents located at the side of the runway. There were more people around than that one little village nearby could possibly be inhabited by, but no matter how far the journey, they had all come here to watch the sport aviators, chat and drink. For a seemingly pointless trip, this was a pretty good reward.

The Doctor and Sarah stopped at the wooden fence, which was keeping the visitors off the runway, to watch the next propeller machine as it prepared for descent.

"How far up do you think he's flying?", asked her friend as he leaned on the barrier.

"About half a mile?", Sarah guessed.

"Could be.", he replied after a moment of pondering, before turning his gaze back to her. "And what's beyond that half mile, hm?"

"The sky?" said the young woman and casually hung her crossed arms over the fence.

"Oh, you can do a little better than that.", he criticised her, so she tried again.

"The stratosphere?"

The Doctor nodded, proud of his companion.  
"That and the mesosphere, and the thermosphere, and beyond that..."

"... _ **The vastness of space**_ _ **.**_ ", they finished the sentence together, once Sarah had figured out the last words by herself.

He chuckled quietly before he pointed at the sky. The spark of adventure was in his eyes, that excited twinkle of fascination for the world. "If we could be up there", he said, "we would see a beautiful blue celestial body full of life hurtling through the vacuum of space at an incredible speed of 107,200 kilometres per hour and we would be in awe at the power of physics that allows this life to thrive in such a hostile environment."

For a moment there, as he talked, she thought she had him back. That they could as well be standing in front of the open TARDIS door and looking at said blue planet called Earth, galaxies, stars, nebulas and black holes from afar. "Go on…!", she encouraged him.

"It's all in the laws of space and time; the pull of gravitation, the relative disposition in time through speed...", he began to elaborate and cast his gaze back at the plane buzzing above their heads. "You see, the mass of the Earth, or any-" Suddenly, he just stopped and as Sarah wondered why, she found his eyes not wide with fascination any more, but with some kind of shock.

"Doctor…?", she asked him, worriedly – yet too late.

It happened within mere seconds; He clutched the cloth of his shirt at the height of his chest, before with a gasp, he just collapsed all of a sudden. As always when she bore witness to his misfortune, Sarah tried to catch him, but only managed to slow his fall to the ground as she went down with him.

"Doctor!", she called his name again, but there was not the smallest sign of a response. Not a twitching of the closed eye lids or a clenched fist trembling. His mind had just shut down from one moment to the next. _Why!? And why now, why so suddenly!?_ As she pulled his upper body into her arms and brushed the curls away from his forehead, an icy shiver ran down her spine. His skin felt so unnaturally cold. _Was it good? Was it bad?_ She remembered what Harry had told her about Time Lord physiology. _Was he turning back into a Time Lord and she had failed to notice it?_ With presence of mind she immediately checked his pulse by pressing her fingers to his neck, but started to panic inwardly when she failed to find it. Sarah barely noticed how she was digging the fingers of her other hand into his jacket. _Had his heart stopped beating?_ She might have been mistaken this time like she had been so many times before, but that knowledge didn't stop her from fearing the worst again. "Oh no…! No!" The words escaped her gritted teeth.

By now the some of the festival visitors had noticed the emergency and started to ask questions about what had happened.

" **Someone call an ambulance!"** , Sarah cried out.

==== ==== End of EPISODE 3 ==== ====

 _And that's all, folks!  
_ _No, of course it isn't. There are at least two more Episodes to follow.  
Episode 3 had a big focus on fluffy little scenes with the Doctor, while Harry has to carry the actual plot. Again, the scene about the 'trip to the sea' attempts to further define how the Doctor and Harry get along, and then, there's of course the scene between Harry and Clara! Sarah is so used to Harry being good-looking, well-behaved and successful in his career (as well as unimpressed by all that), that, well, I thought he deserved some more credit - just by placing him in a scene with someone who would notice. Aside from that, I hope you have noticed the long build-up throughout the episode leading to the cliffhanger - because Sarah obviously missed it!  
And then, there's Benton. Bless poor Benton! I hope he'll be back~~_


	19. Always There For Him (Ep4)

==== ==== EPISODE 4 ==== ====

 _{ In which two and a half human finally set out to confront their reflections. }_

A clicking noise, followed by a low humming forced its way out of the light box as Harry switched it on to illuminate the x-ray image from behind.

"Is that what I think it is? The second heart?"  
Sarah-Jane pointed at a small, dark shape behind the left half of the ribcage visible in the picture. So far, she had never seen an x-ray of the Doctor, but if it wasn't for the two hearts – one curiously smaller than the other – she still could have mistaken him for a fellow human being. Even so, that one physical anomaly was more than enough to prove that her original guess had been right: He was changing back into his old, alien self.  
The young woman cast her gaze over to the medical expert at her side.

Harry had arrived in his best lab coat to meet her in the hospital the ambulance had brought the Time Lord to. Even though the local doctors had been asked a little too much of by this curious new case, Sarah's initial reaction to send for help had not been entirely wrong. After all, their friend was still alive, albeit barely hanging on at the moment for all she knew. The surgeon lieutenant studied the x-ray image for a few more seconds, answering rather absent-mindedly "Yes, I suppose so..."  
Impatiently, Sarah watched the expression on his face for any change which would signify good or bad news.

"This could be an internal blood clot there..." Harry pointed at one of many shadows near the second heart's aorta, but the frown on his face remained unchanged.

"That's bad, isn't it?", Sarah demanded to know.

He finally turned to face her. "No, not really… it's not dangerous where it is... But I believe that it happened when the second aorta opened up. Probably that was also when he collapsed; the vascular system couldn't take the sudden change."

He did not seem as worried as she expected him to be, but still her frown grew deeper as she tried to understand what had happened at the sport aviator's festival. "I'm not sure I understand. I thought he's changed back?"

"He _**is changing**_ back.", Harry corrected her. "But the process is slow, a little too slow, perhaps. The parts which are still human and the parts which are already… Time Lord-ish have to figure out how to work together. At least that is my theory." Since she was just nervously chewing on her lower lip, he eventually decided to explain in detail. Not that he actually knew much about the topic: His gestures suggested that he was guessing at best.

"Imagine it like this, Sarah: If there's anything we know about Time Lords, it's that their metabolism works a lot more efficient than ours, doesn't it? Now imagine..." His eyes searched the room while he tried to come up with a simplified scenario to compare the current situation with. "You have a light bulb, but your only power source available is a nuclear power station. Or, the other way around: You have a small city and just a coin cell to power it with."

"It's all right, Harry, I can see what you're getting at." She hung her head low and paced a few steps up and down in the lab of the hospital. "It's dangerous for him either way."

Even though her aimless gaze wandered throughout the laboratory, she heard him sigh behind her. "Thankfully, the Doctor's stable now, but back there – whatever hamlet you've been to – he was lucky that the paramedic on site had a flash of inspiration to administer a shot of adrenalin to him. It appears to have saved his life."

As she turned back around, she missed out on her chance to agree with him. Luck, as he called it, was nothing she wanted to bet on again, even though she was grateful for the kindness of strangers. "Is there anything _you_ can do?", Sarah asked him specifically.

"Well, I'll certainly try!", Harry assured her, but the look on his face was not exactly full of confidence. "But, if I may be honest with you, I am scared to treat him with any medicine at all as long as I cannot predict how the mixed metabolism will react..." The look in his eyes alone told her that he was sorry not to know what he should do.

She nodded understandingly, but cast her gaze back at the floor to her feet. "I see...", she just replied and allowed silence to settle between them, as uncomfortable as it was.

"Well... there is one thing which might help a little..." Harry suddenly walked over to Sarah, which caused her to look back up into his face. "When I went to the university on Saturday, a student by the name of Clara Oswald found this..." Out of the pocket of the jacket he was wearing underneath his lab coat, he pulled a small silver object. A key, to be more precise.

"It's the TARDIS key! But how-? Where-?", Sarah stammered and hastily reached for the precious pendant. It was a true shimmer of hope: Finally some part of the TARDIS had made it back to them!

"She said the Doctor lost it, so I suppose he had it with him all the time, just never knew what it was for...", explained Harry briefly, but smiled in an optimistic fashion. "I suppose he'll be glad to have it back when he comes to."

"He better be! Because I will give him a stern talking to for losing it in the first place!" His friend angrily lowered her brows. How could he dare to lose an item of such importance? Obviously, he had been able to keep the fob watch on him because of its importance, and so his subconsciousness should have recognized the TARDIS' spade-shaped key as well!

A chuckle came from Harry as he watched her act in such an upset manner. Quite obviously, he was not taking her seriously. "Something tells me that you won't, really.", he said. "I say, you're the last person on this planet to kick a man who's already hit rock bottom."

She could not help but smile. Of course he was right. After all this time, Harry knew her so well. "You may be right about that...", she answered lowly before lifting her gaze again. "Well, you know where you'll find me..." She hid the key in her hands as she began to walk over to the laboratory exit and glanced over to Harry once more to show him a grateful smile.

"I'll come check on the two of you later once I'm done trying to identify the additional chemical components in this blood sample.", he replied. His sympathetic gaze seemed to follow her all the way until she was out of the door.

What Sarah had not needed to mention explicitly to Harry was that she was returning to her best friend's bedside. The hospital's room was actually meant for four patients, but because the Doctor was such a special case, everyone else had been moved. Apparently, the last time he had accidentally ended up in a hospital, word had gotten out about him being different from the rest of mankind, and within the same day reporters from all over the country had gathered in the hospital's lobby. This time however, UNIT had gotten involved early enough to make sure that Sarah was the only reporter allowed within the Time Lord's proximity. So there she eventually sat, on a chair pulled as close to the sickbed as possible. To her right stood a night stand onto which she had placed the TARDIS key and the velvet pouch which prevented the fob watch inside from spilling more of its golden light.  
Secretly, she hoped the items might help the Doctor in one way or another, although she was unable to explain just how. It was a horrible feeling not knowing what to do, feeling so absolutely useless again. But what other options did she have? She could continue the mirror investigation, sure, if that would only look less like a dead end… And it would not help the Doctor much, would it?

With sad eyes she looked at her friend, who was just lying there, looking pale and weak… a little more maybe than usual when something had knocked him unconscious. Knowing how strong and confident he usually was, and cheerful on top of it all, it easily hurt twice as much to see him so beaten. While Sarah tried to think back at the last weeks, she carefully placed her hand on his. The touch seemed cold, just as it should be for his kind, but she could not suppress her natural human instinct which associated coldness with sickness. She picked up his hand to close both of hers around it and lean her cheek onto. It was unnecessary trying to warm him, but at least it made her feel a little better... a little less useless, perhaps.

The room was mostly silent, except for the sound of rain pelting against the window nearby. The clear blue sky of the morning was long since gone and forgotten. Why was it always that the rain seemed to make a situation such as this even sadder than it already was? She sighed heavily and closed her eyes to listen to the distant drumming for a while. After all the times she had feared for his life, you would expect the feeling to be weaker this time around, but it was not. No matter how often she had pointlessly shed tears over what she had believed to be his untimely end, she would still cry again.

"Sarah… It's you." The dark timbre of the voice was familiar, but so very weak, just a faint whisper of a lovely melody. "You're there…"

Almost startled by the sound, Sarah raised her head to discover that the Doctor had opened his eyes a crack wide. The smile he wore was so terribly feeble, a shame compared to his usual toothy grin. She let go as she felt his hand move out of his own will. Just before he placed it back on the edge of the bed, he gently brushed her cheek with the backside of his hand.

"Doctor…!" The tenderness of his gesture had her almost paralysed for a moment.

"Just like that time I was strangled by a mummy or... the time I lost the mind-bending game… Just like all the other times I passed out..." He was speaking more slowly than usual. "As I opened my eyes, you were there. Why are you always there...?"

"I worry about you.", Sarah answered quietly, without a moment of hesitation. "You're important. I tried to help you; to save your life, every time. Don't you remember? You saved my life countless times as well." His words had made her hopeful that finally, he might remember the past as it had happened and not as he imagined it.

"Did I…?", he wondered, and so she let him for a while. "… I don't know, Sarah. Surely I would, but… I can't remember." There was a stressed frown forming on his face and he shifted, seemingly uneasy with the confusing thoughts on his mind.

"Shh...! Yes, you do." Sarah hushed him just to indicate that she did not want him to think too deep into it when she had all the answers already. "You just told me you were strangled by a mummy. This only happened because you subjected yourself to the will of its master, the Osiran Suthek, as you walked into his prison to disrupt his concentration. It was the only way to stop him from burning the universe!"

The Doctor listened, but just shook his head. "I can't make any sense of what you're saying… Who is this Suthek, the Destroyer?", he asked back, looking somewhat sorry that he was unable to follow her words.

But Sarah just sighed. It was there, it was all there! She had never mentioned Suthek's nickname. "Well… he did not burn the world in 1911 thanks to you, so never mind now." Her attempt to make him let go of the topic for now was rather mediocre, but there were so many more things she needed to tell him. While she picked up the TARDIS key from the night stand, he mumbled something about " _alternative points in time_ " to himself. Judging by the way he was staring into space, the Doctor was still trying to put his thoughts into order.  
"Look here, Doctor..." Sarah dangled the spade-shaped silver key into his field of view, so that he wouldn't need to turn his head. "Harry and Clara brought this back to you. Do you recognize it?"

"That's my pendant. Huh, I thought I lost it…?" He blinked at it, surprised, but then lifted a hand for her to drop the object into.

"It's more than just a pendant, Doctor. It's the key to the TARDIS.", Sarah explained while he examined it closer. "She looks like a police box, but is actually a time machine – and a piece of your home world."

Looking past the key in his hand, he shot her a sceptical look, but allowed her to continue nonetheless.

"For the last three years, you and I travelled the universe in it. We fought monsters and saved people, sometimes with the help of UNIT, sometimes without." Harry had warned her not to tell him, but feeling that she could wait no longer to remind him of his true past, the words just flowed from the young woman's mouth. "But then your old nemesis, the Master, tracked you down and disappeared with you and the TARDIS to carry out his revenge. When I finally found you, over a month later, you were no longer a Time Lord and you had forgotten all about our adventures. To you, they were just bed-time stories we supposedly made up when I was a child..."

"Sarah…! Sarah." The Doctor signalled her to stop. "Listen, I worry about you, too. But about your mental health, I am afraid." The upset look in his eyes told her that she had already said more than he cared to hear, but he was still too tired to truly raise his voice even if he had wanted to. "Do you even realize what you are saying? Do you think I would find it funny if you kept pretending that I'm this superior being from outer space? How can you even expect me to believe you when I remember so well a childhood on Earth?"

Hurt that he would accuse her of purposely trying to upset him, Sarah averted her gaze for a moment, before she found the right question to contradict him with. "...Do you, really?" She challenged him to give it some more thought by pointing out the paradox he had just created in his own memory. "You just remembered me being there all the times you almost gave your life in an attempt to stop evil – although you've told me before that we haven't seen each other for twenty years."

Too stubborn to admit that she might in fact be right – or at least that there could be a grain of truth to her variation of their history – he merely turned his face away from her. Sarah sighed as she finally understood why Harry had warned her about doing this. Yet now it was too late: The Pandora's box had been opened.

"...Why did I pass out this time?", the Doctor suddenly asked, with a worried tone to his quiet voice.

"That would have been because your second heart started beating again...", Sarah replied bluntly, while she looked down at her folded hands again.

Still, she heard the soft rustling noise of the pillow as the Doctor turned his head towards her again.  
"Really? But when did it ever stop beating?"

"What...?" Surprised that this was not the question she had expected, Sarah looked up. They stared into each others faces with wide eyes. "You've known all along that you were supposed to have two hearts?"

"Yes, of course, I…!", he started with a light frown, but then gasped as another realization hit him. "What gave me that impression!?"

Sarah watched his expression contort in mental distress with eyes of pity and placed a hand on his arm in the hope to ease his confusion with her presence. Just then, the sound of a door handle caused her to spin around in her seat.


	20. Catching Up With The Present (Ep4)

Even the Doctor was distracted enough to lift his head for a moment. "Oh, hello Andrews!", he called out, in his usual greeting tone, albeit a bit less joyful due to his overall tiredness.

But the man standing in the door frame just raised his eye brows in confusion.

"Don't mind him, Harry. He's a bit confused...", explained Sarah quickly.

"I suppose he would be. But at least he's awake.", replied the medical officer and former companion, before he walked over to his friends. He stopped right next to Sarah at the bedside. "Doctor, how do you feel?"

"My bad, Harry.", the Doctor apologized and squinted his eyes to make sure he was not mistaken about the man's identity again before he continued his rambling. "You don't look at all like that fellow Andrews..." He lifted a hand to catch Harry's sleeve at the same time as he stretched to look up at him. Sarah had often seen that helpless look on his face when he had been seeking her help, but it was the first time he turned to the medical officer like this. "Tell me, Harry... Should I be concerned about not being concerned that I may or may not be entirely human...?"

A little surprised by the unusual question, Harry glanced over to Sarah. Once she had nodded approvingly, he decided: "No, presumably not."

Sighing, the Doctor let himself drop back into a comfortable position. "That's a relief.", he said under a light smile and rested his tired eyes.

For several moments, Harry allowed him to, but then he eventually noticed how the Doctor had so brilliantly avoided to give an answer to his question. "...And, besides that?", the medical officer tried again.

"Hmm?" He just gave a noise without opening his eyes back up...

Harry shoved his hands into the pockets of the lab coat. "How are you doing?"

"Hmmm."

"Tired, I suppose…?", the younger man tried to guess, but Sarah stepped in to translate before the Doctor had him talking to himself.

"I believe what he is trying to say, is that you better try again later.", she told Harry, chuckling quietly.

"Oh, well...", he sighed in defeat and rolled his eyes since only Sarah could see it. "You know, old girl, at least here's something I still can do. But for Miss Shaw..." He shook his head.

The regretful tone in his voice caused her to look up in surprise. "What about her?", she asked.

"Didn't I tell you? The mirror's gotten Miss Shaw as well. Happened only last Thursday..."

Suddenly, the Doctor's voice joined the conversation again.  
"...Miss Shaw?", he wondered aloud, but still did not spare his companion a glance.

"Oh, look, the patient's responsive after all…!", Harry teased his change of mind, before Sarah could finally reply to him.

"Miss Elizabeth Shaw, yes. _Liz Shaw_ for short. Do you remember her?"

Their half-alien friend shook his head. "The name rings a bell, but that's about all..." A moment of silence passed after he had said it, then his eyes flew back open. "How many people are missing now, Harry?"

"About four dozen.", the younger one replied, "Some of them have shown up again, but they weren't quite… themselves afterwards. Quite frankly, I believe them to be copies, like the androids or something of the sort..." He exchanged another glance with Sarah, presumably because both of them still remembered the attempted invasion of Earth that had involved a number of facsimile humans – including a copy of each of the three friends.

To everyone's surprise, the Doctor propped himself up on an elbow. His expectant gaze wandered between his companions. "Tell me about the case. Tell me more about the mirrors.", he asked of them.

Afraid that he might be getting the idea to get out of bed, Sarah held up her hands. "Are you sure that's such a good idea? You're supposed to be resting..."

"Resting!?" He looked at her as though she had suggested the impossible. "I can barely stand the silence in my head! Come now, I'm just looking for something to occupy my thoughts with!"

The young woman shot him a stern look. "The last time you didn't want to believe us. You laughed at the matter."

Shaking his head, the Doctor disagreed. "I won't this time! Just tell me the whole story, will you?"

"Well then, here goes... It all started about two months ago when a weapons manufacturer vanished and the government put UNIT on the case...", Harry began to explain, and told the Time Lord about as much as he knew – every little part of the case he had been involved in personally. Occasionally, Sarah added a remark, but remained mostly quiet while the medical officer spoke of tetrahedra, reflections coming alive behind one's back, Benton's disappearance and Miss Shaw's failed attempts at identifying alien substances in the mirrors' make-up.

Indeed, the Doctor remained serious this time around. He just listened, gave the occasional nod to show that he was still following the explanation and appeared to be silently processing the information. Once Harry's retelling of the past ended in the present, the Doctor rejoined the conversation. "Sarah, why didn't you tell them?", he asked unexpectedly of the young woman.

"Tell them what?", she wondered with a light frown.

"That an investigation is not about finding the right answers, but about asking the right questions." explained the Doctor and gazed at her to see if she agreed. Once she had figured out the meaning of his clever advise, she nodded back at him.

"So which questions do you believe we should have asked?", Harry wanted to know as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"How did the tetrahedra get into the mirrors, hm?" The Doctor replied a little more slowly again. "At one point in their history, each of the mirrors must have been exposed to the same treatment in order to have gained their special properties. In a factory, or a workshop, for example, wouldn't you say?"

"Ah, yes… Of course these aren't any old mirrors, then...", the medical officer agreed for both of the time traveller's companions. "I would assume that the Brigadier has already been investigating their origin. But I need to ask again to know for sure."

"Perhaps you should do that.", suggested the Doctor.

While he leaned back to rest some more, Sarah sought the eye contact to Harry. The mentioning of the Brigadier reminded her of something he had told her earlier today. "He's on his way here, isn't he?", she asked the UNIT member.

"Yes, he is. He could arrive any moment...", Harry replied to her before addressing their tired friend again. "By the way, he also wanted to have a chat with you once you're up to it, Doctor."

"Did he…? But what for, I don't even know the man..? Not yet, anyway...", he wondered aloud, but then raised a hand to signal his companions not to answer this question. "No, don't say anything, I can imagine..." Once the words were spoken, Sarah watched in surprise as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. By the grunt and the exhausted expression on his face, she could tell easily that it cost him some effort.

Worried for his health, she reached out to stop him. "What are you doing, Doctor?"

"What does it look like? I'm getting up to meet this Brigadier of yours.", he explained briefly.

"Now? In your condition?! He isn't even here yet!", protested the young woman, which caused him to shoot her an annoyed glance. Despite his reaction, she kept her hands up, ready to push him back down if he attempted to swing himself out of bed.

"Look, Sarah, do you want me to lie in bed and be miserable all day?"

"I don't want you to be _UP_ and miserable all day.", she replied, shaking her head, "Actually, I just don't want you to be miserable at all!"

"She's right.", Harry finally stepped in to support her with medical authority. "You've only just avoided a brush with death, and I dare say you're far from a full recovery."

The Doctor looked at each of them sceptically, his gaze wandering back and forth several times to assess the situation, and his friends' request.

"Please, Doctor. If you're not concerned about your own health, at least respect our concern.", pleaded Sarah.

He thought about it for another moment, but then he slowly lowered himself back into the pillows. "All right, fine." Though he let out an annoyed sigh, he appeared to agree with them for now. She didn't dare to question just how they had managed to persuade him so easily, she was just glad that they had succeeded.

A polite knocking on the door caused them to turn their heads. It opened by a crack, and a member of the hospital staff poked his head into the room. "Doctor Sullivan? There's a Sir Lethbridge-Stewart waiting for you at the reception."

"Talk of the devil.", Harry said to himself before walking over to the room's exit. "I'll be back with the Brig soon.", he announced to the other two.

Sarah was ready to follow him to the lobby, but at the same time, she couldn't simply leave the Doctor here, in this state. "Don't worry!" She smiled at the patient reassuringly and gave the hand that was resting on the edge of the bed a light squeeze and a pat. "We'll explain the situation to him before we come back here. It'll be just five minutes."

"Don't say too much about me. I intend to speak for myself.", he replied to her and nodded into the direction of the door as if to tell her that she should stop Harry from spilling too much.

Nodding back in agreement, his assistant got up to catch the medical officer in the corridor outside of the patient's room. She managed to stop him quickly, and passed on to him what the Doctor had asked of her. Harry accepted the request with raised eyebrows and a shrug before they eventually walked to the lobby together.


	21. Colonels And Andrews (Ep4)

It took them the full, aforementioned five minutes just to walk to the hospital's entrance, to exchange a greeting and a few simple words to explain the current situation and then to return to the patient's room. Yet even before they arrived back at the Doctor's bedside, the sight of a familiar figure stepping out of the door caused their little trip around the ward to be cut short. It was the Doctor who spared them the rest of the way by coming towards them. All of a sudden it clicked in Sarah's mind and she understood why he had been so agreeable before. As soon as they had left the room, he had been able to get up without facing an argument! Sarah puffed up her cheeks angrily.  
Harry, however, hadn't quite understood it yet. He called out his patient's name, merely surprised to find him on his feet. "Doctor! You shouldn't be here!"

"Shouldn't I?", replied the Doctor, shouting back through the corridor. "But I just want to say _Hello_ to the Colonel! Hello, Colonel!" He waved over to them.

In his current, half-confused state Sarah would not have been too surprised to find the tall man wandering the corridors in the hospital gown still, but thankfully he had changed back into his professor's outfit. You could tell that he had been in a hurry to do so since he was still pulling his jacket over his shirt. And, after he had approached her and the two UNIT men, Sarah also noticed the TARDIS spade-shaped key dangling from his neck underneath the orange and brown scarf. She shot the taller man an angry glare as a means of punishment for having tricked her and Harry.

"Hello, Doctor! It's good to see you. Though, as you know, I am no longer a Colonel, I'm a Brigadier now.", explained Lethbridge-Stewart as the two of them shook hands and the Doctor's assistant caught a glimpse of a smile spreading underneath the military man's moustache.

"Of course, you would be, after your promotion! Congratulations, by the way!" The Doctor believed so firmly in his own confused words that he took the Brigadier's hand once more just to shake on his promotion, no matter how long ago it had happened.

At the same time, Harry put both of his hands on his hips as he shook his head and he and Sarah exchanged sceptical looks with each other. "Next time, I'll tie him down before I turn my back.", she quietly hissed to Harry. If either of the other two heard her by accident, she didn't mind.

Unlike them, The Brigadier just cleared his throat and continued on as though this confusing, little scene had not happened at all. Apparently, he thought nothing of the Doctor's strange behaviour – or, in any case, not more than he usually did. He straightened his posture and folded his hands behind his back. "Well then, how do you do? Sullivan here called me in about an emergency." The concern was difficult to read from Lethbridge-Stewart's face, yet it was undoubtedly there. He was always so professional about everything, almost too professional.

"Yes, _HOW do you do?_ ", repeated Sarah, but with a sour tone. Least the Doctor could do was to tell him the truth about what had happened!

Only now the tall man looked at her, but his brief glare told her clearly to keep quiet. Then, with the most clueless expression he could muster, he turned back to Lethbridge-Stewart. " _Emergency?_ There's been no emergency! Just a severe allergic reaction to… hay, was it?", he flat out lied to the Brigadier. The smile remained on his face even as he continued. "But if I hear that question one more time, I might just die of too much sympathy."  
Sarah studied his demeanour, distrustful of his act, but found no trace of the weakness he had shown just minutes ago. He couldn't possible have recovered this fast, could he?

"I take it that you're well, then.", replied the Brigadier dryly, although his raised eyebrows proved the impoliteness in the Doctor's tone had not gone unnoticed. Yet he didn't complain.

Harry, however, refused to allow such a bold lie to pass. "Now, Doctor…!", he began in a cautionary tone of voice and stepped bravely forward.

"Enough of me, Brigadier.", the Doctor cut him off mid-sentence by raising his voice over Harry's. "You have a problem with people going missing in another dimension! So, tell me: Have you found the common place in the mirrors' history yet?"

Glancing over to the speechless Harry, the Brigadier refused to answer the question. "Excuse me, Doctor, but I believe this is none of your concern. I gave explicit orders that civilians may not be involved in the case." But instead of supporting his subordinate, both the medical officer and Sarah received strict looks from him. She gasped at him, feeling offended by the importance of such a trifle at a time like this.

The Doctor, too, had noticed the glare. "Oh, don't look at them like that!", he ordered the Brigadier and also took a step forwards, as though he tried to put his companions under his protection. "It's not their fault. I involved myself. In fact, I demand to be involved from now on!"

When she saw him puff himself up like that, Sarah began to understand what was going on: The Doctor intended to act as the higher authority, just like he used to do in the many arguments he used to have with the Brigadier in the past. It was mostly subtle, hidden in his gestures and demeanour, and, no doubt, had to be quite exhausting for him. The benefit of it? Obviously, the Brig wouldn't dare to decide over a man who had the strength to insist on making his own decisions.

"And why is that, if I may ask?", Lethbridge-Stewart wanted to know next, in regard of the Doctor's sudden interest in UNIT operations.

"Because...", the Doctor replied, lifting a finger and then hesitated a moment. "...I discovered that being a professor doesn't suit me." He leaned threateningly close towards the Brigadier, who, although he was not backing down, felt visibly uncomfortable. "Now, do you want my help or do you not?"

After thinking his priorities over for another second, the UNIT superior began to reply to the question the Doctor had posed earlier, as a means to signify his approval. To his relief, his former scientific advisor decided to step back out of his sphere of privacy. "There is a small warehouse on the outskirts of London, owned by a Mister Walter Simeon… It's not an official business he has, but the few clues we've gotten are pointing to his place. It appears he has been taking and giving mirrors for several feigned reasons. I fought for a while to get a permission to mount a raid on the warehouse, but they have denied my request due to the lack of evidence so far."

The Doctor stared at him in shock. "Who ever told you that you need to _**raid**_ the place?"

"We have been unable to get a hold on Mr. Simeon for questioning. No one will tell us what is really inside of that warehouse.", explained the Brigadier. "And if I may emphasize on it: _A lot_ of people have come to harm because of those mirrors. At this point, I expect some ghastly surprise to come out of this case. We have to be properly prepared to face it."

"I see…" The Time Lord pondered about it for a little while, seemingly agreeing with the Brigadier's presentiment of danger. He paced a few steps around his friends. "So how can we get a look at what's in there?", he posed the question to everyone present.

"What if it's not as ghastly as you expect it to be? What if it's just Mr. Simeon, or say, one of his workers?", Sarah wondered aloud as she tried to offer a more optimistic outlook on the case. With a shrug, she suggested the simplest solution that came to her mind. "The authorities won't complain about a handful of investigators poking about, will they? Especially if they don't know about it." A light smile played about her lips.

"I was thinking of that, too, Miss Smith, and I am also aware of your methods of intrusion." The gaze the Brigadier directed at her showed his disapproval. He was willing to bend the laws for the fate of the world, but unlike Sarah, he would only do it if it was absolutely necessary. More importantly, though, he had another objection to raise. "However, if it's not Mr. Simeon in there, chances are that I will never see this _handful of investigators_ ever again." He emphasized on _'the investigators'_ bit as though he knew his best team would be the ones volunteering to die.

"Well, you could bring a carload of soldiers, just for backup, couldn't you?", argued Sarah. "Park them outside, and have them rush in at the first sign of danger? Or does that require a permission as well?" She cocked her head and looked at him in a way that silently questioned him, whether he might be making this more difficult than it needed to be. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the Doctor smiling at her and eagerly awaiting the Brigadier's response.

Lethbridge-Stewart crossed his arms while he pondered about her suggestion. "I suppose that's feasible...", he agreed eventually.

"Could we drive there as soon as possible?", the Doctor immediately asked, but was shot another glare by Harry for his inappropriate zest for action.

"Yes, I can organize a meeting right away." This time it was the Brigadier who kept his medical officer from raising his voice in concern. "Where do I find the next telephone, Sullivan?", he addressed him.

Harry's disoriented expression revealed plainly that this question had just caused his train of thought to derail. He hesitated a moment before he pointed towards the end of the corridor. "Ehm, just down the hall and then to the left, Sir. You'll find a wall telephone there."

A short nod in response, and the Brigadier walked away to contact UNIT headquarters, which left the remaining three standing in the hallway unsupervised. Once he had turned his back and was at least 10 feet away from them, Sarah noticed how the Doctor dropped his shoulders and exhaled in relief. All of a sudden, he seemed no longer as strong and collected as he had appeared a mere seconds before. The tired look of weakness returned to his eyes. _'Bloody hypocrit_ _e_ _, you!_ _'_ , his assistant cursed in her thoughts. She had been right about his act from the very beginning! As she stepped closer to provide support in case that he needed it, the Doctor gestured for her to leave it be. "Don't, Sarah! ...I'm better already."

Even so, Harry had every reason to keep sending stern looks his way. "I say, I really ought to tell the Brig about the condition you're in. A warehouse on the outskirts of London is the last place you're supposed to be right now.", he lectured the Doctor, before finally demanding an explanation. "What's the point of this charade, anyway?"

"The point is, Harry", he began to explain, sending an equally stern gaze back at him. "that if I stay here, I'm condemned to ponder about Andrews and Colonels, and singing Venusian lullabies to furry beasts with a voice that isn't my own."

A smile crossed Sarah's face as she remembered how he had saved her from the beast Aggedor on Peladon. His previous incarnation had been a good singer. The current one not so much, or at least he didn't dare to try, despite having a good storyteller's voice. But aside from recalling a memory they shared, his words made her realize what a mess his mind had to be at the moment, and so her smile faded away quickly.

"And I'd really rather not. I'd rather _just_ _BE_ _me_.", concluded the Doctor, before casting his gaze at each of his companions. "Besides… I have you with me, in any case, don't I?" He looked almost a little afraid that he might be wrong after all.

"Well, we can't have you join the fray without us, now, can we?", nodded Harry, finally giving in to his patient's wish.

"You'd have to try really hard to get rid of us.", confirmed Sarah.

The Doctor smiled back at each of his companions, gratefully. "Thank you. Both of you."  
Well, given the last weeks, they deserved a word of gratitude, didn't they?


	22. The Mirror Labyrinth (Ep4)

It did not take long for the Brigadier to return, and when he did, he had instructed his men back at UNIT headquarters to arrange the meeting of a small division with him and the trio at the warehouse. Harry quickly hurried back to the lab to gather the notes and instruments he had brought with him – as well as any leftover evidence of the Doctor's existence, while at the same time, Sarah ran back to the patient's room to fetch the glowing fob watch they had accidentally left unguarded. One might be able to image the small shock she got when she found the velvet pouch to be missing. But thankfully, her fright didn't last very long. Along with the TARDIS key, the fob watch had found its way back among the Doctor's belongings, who, in order to answer her question, had produced the pouch from the pocket of his jacket. For a moment, Sarah wondered whether she should try to question him about it again, especially about the glow emitted from the inside of the watch, but she decided to keep quiet. Only his old self would know the answer to these questions, and as he had stated himself a few minutes back, he was by far confused enough already. But there was only one thing she, and he, really needed to know about it, anyway: It was important. Never mind why, but it was very, very important in regard of the Doctor's true identity.

Once the Doctor, Sarah and Harry had left the hospital, they took the Doctor's black Daimler taxi to follow the Brigadier to the warehouse they had spoken about. Hours upon hours before, when the ambulance had taken the unconscious half-Time Lord away, Sarah had driven his newly bought, but battered car after them. She most certainly wouldn't have done that had she not thought that it was necessary at the time, because not only did the car look beaten, but driving it was about three times as bad. Nothing was working quite as one would expect it and she had accidentally taken off the knob on the gear stick twice. So, naturally, she quietly let out a sigh of relief as the Doctor insisted on driving and Harry did not argue.  
On their way to the outskirts of London the rain kept prattling on the car's roof and during the one hour drive, the sun began to set behind the horizon. The overcast sky seemed to make the evening even darker than usual. Sarah found herself thinking about how long and stressful this Sunday had been so far.

Eventually, they arrived at the end of an old industrial park. The warehouse, their destination, loomed large in the distance. Its massive square structure and dimly lit windows had something threatening about them, causing an uneasy feeling within the young woman as friends and UNIT members drove up to its gates. On a week end's evening it was only common that no employees were around, but the absence of any other people except for the hired support by UNIT, just added to the slightly ominous atmosphere. There was no one and nothing to stop them from entering the terrain surrounding the warehouse. After parking in front of the staff entrance, they stepped out of the car and back into the rain, which had thankfully let up a little in the meantime.

Several yards away from them, the Brigadier, too, had left his car and was exchanging a few words with the UNIT soldiers waiting in a van nearby. They must have arrived a little earlier than the rest of them.

"I must say, I am not particularly thrilled to break in there...", Harry said quietly while he was standing next to Sarah and looking up at the faint glow emitted from behind the building's windows. "Do you suppose that someone's still at work?"

The young woman studied their surroundings carefully. Behind the corner of the building, a black car other than the Doctor's was parked. Because of the rain impairing her view and the darkness setting in, she had failed to notice it until now. "It's possible we're not alone...", she replied, then wondered: "… But what would anyone want out here on a Sunday?"

"Maybe the Doctor isn't the only one who's gotten cabin fever and came here to work...", Harry mused quietly, but not quietly enough.

The Doctor glared over his shoulder at Harry, displeased to hear him making such unsubstantiated assumptions. "I very much doubt that.", he told him.

It was about that time, that the Brigadier rejoined the trio. "Well then, shall we?", he asked and nodded in the direction of the staff entrance, before leading their little party towards the building. Since he had also noticed the light inside of the building, he knocked politely in the hope to receive an answer from whoever or whatever was inside. Yet all that followed the hollow sound of his knocking was the everlasting white noise of the rain on the tarmac and tin roof. The Brigadier raised an eyebrow and shot his companions a glance as though he was asking them whether someone had a better suggestion or needed to voice his or her concern. Sarah's thoughts raced for a moment or two, trying to think of another way to open the lock without the good old sonic screwdriver, but then all of that didn't matter any more as the Brigadier pressed down the door's handle, and it swung open almost by itself.  
Surprised to find that it had not been locked to begin with, the four of them peeked warily into the warehouse beyond. There wasn't much to see from where they stood, except the empty, yet well-lit inside of the hall. "It appears that we are being expected...", the Doctor said while exchanging serious, mildly worried glances with his friends.

"Really? How could they know that we were coming?", Harry demanded to know, obviously more than mildly worried about that discovery.

"...Could it be that there is a mole working at UNIT?" Knowing that this assumption could be taken as an insult, Sarah posed her question hesitantly, although she knew that it had happened before. And within the last hours, only UNIT and the three of them had been involved, which made her theory even more likely.

Even so, the Brigadier shot her a half-furious glare. "That is preposterous, Miss Smith! We've taken great care to employ only those whom we can fully trust."

"If it has happened to Mike Yates – who was one of your best men – it can happen to anyone.", argued Sarah.

"We have taken even greater care after Captain Yates' treason.", he insisted.

"Or...", the Doctor suddenly cut in, "… there is a much simpler explanation. Whatever is in there could be guarding itself so well that there is no need for security measures."

"So, essentially, you're suggesting that they're overconfident...?" Doubtful, Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Now, we won't know unless we see for ourselves, will we?" After he had spoken this purely rhetorical question, the Doctor decided for himself to make the first step. Without as much as an announcement about what he planned to do he strode into the large hall, calling out loudly: **"H** **ELLO** **!** **Is** **Anyone home?"** His booming voice echoed on the far walls and was thrown back to them several times. Sarah shuddered as the mostly empty hall with its high ceiling was filled with his presence.

Fearful that he might draw too much attention to himself, his assistant hurried after him. _"Doctor!"_ , she hissed as he stopped to wait for a response halfway across the width of the hall. If there was a trap ready to spring he had probably placed himself right in the middle of it and now he was excitedly waiting for something to happen. She caught up with him until she was back at his side, so that, if something happened, at least it wouldn't happen just to him.

A little perplexed by the interruption, he turned towards her. "Hm? What is it?"

"Don't do that…!", Sarah asked of him sternly, shaking her head.

The Doctor blinked at her surprised. "Oh, sorry.", he apologized briefly and shrugged while he attempted to explain himself. "I thought it might be good if we introduced ourselves first…?"

During the few seconds in which Sarah clarified the matter, Harry and the Brigadier had followed them inside. And so, as they all turned to look at the heart of the warehouse, they were met with the sight of a mirror labyrinth unlike any other. In the centre of the building was a stand, on top of which laid an ochre coloured tetrahedron. Harry and Sarah had seen several like this before, but always in the reflection of a mirror. This one was different in the way that it was the real one – and the only real one, as well. Around the stand, corridors of mirrors were arranged in a star burst pattern, similar to how Paris' main roads were arranged around the Arc de Triomphe. Each mirror was propped up on a support frame and adjusted very precisely so that it would reflect the image of at least one other mirror to the opposite of it. Even though they were all of different shape or size and came in a variety of frames, every one of the corridors created a perfect chain of mirrors which were reflecting the tetrahedron into each other.

"Oh, I say!", exclaimed Harry.

"I was right. It is a self-defending system.", the Doctor pointed out to them. "You've told me that every mirror with a tetrahedron in it can potentially absorb a human and produce a copy, is that correct?" Although he asked, he did not wait for someone to answer. "So, if the original, the real tetrahedron is the key, then the only way to disarm the mirrors is to walk down one of these corridors."

"That's almost impossible.", figured UNIT's medical officer. "Even if we ran down the corridor, it's so narrow that something will have yanked us in before we get to the middle. And believe me, I've been there, these reflections are pretty strong."

The Brigadier was thinking differently about the problem at hand. "It's far from impossible, Sullivan. I don't see a single living soul in sight. I could call in the RAF and have this place flattened by the hour without anyone risking their life in the process."

"I'm afraid that is not as much of an option as you think, Brigadier." The Doctor cut into the conversation while he was still examining the corridors from afar. "Not while we still haven't answered the question to where all the victims have gone."

"You are not seriously suggesting that each of these mirrors holds a victim...?"

Unwilling to allow himself to be criticised by the Brigadier's sceptical glance in return, the Doctor stepped closer to him to use his towering height for underlining his point. From one second to the next he had turned slightly upset. " _ **Yes,**_ _**I suggest**_ that each of these mirrors contains possibly, not necessarily, a pocket dimension to imprison one or several people. If only one of the mirrors is shattered by accident, its pocket dimension will be lost for good, along with whatever is inside of it." He turned his head to look sideways at Lethbrigde-Stewart out of a haunting stare. "Could you rest easy at night not knowing how many people's lives you have destroyed?"

"I understand very well what you are saying, Doctor, and I don't plan on destroying any lives, as you should know.", answered the Brigadier. His voice was as emotionless as always, yet he averted his look. Obviously, he was unable to withstand the Doctor's strange glare for long, and so he was seeking the eye contact with one of the companions instead. "...Does anyone have another idea?"

The Doctor, too, turned towards his companions in expectation.

"Uhm...", stammered Harry, who was clearly lacking an idea to propose, and so the expectant look wandered over to Sarah.

For some reason, the first thing she could think of was the action UNIT had taken after Benton's disappearance. They had _disabled_ the mirror by putting it into a crate. "We could… throw big blankets over the mirrors, so there won't be a reflection?", Sarah suggested hesitantly.

"It's possible, although it would take some time to organize enough blankets..." The Brigadier crossed his arms as he pondered about her idea. However, he was not exactly excited about it.

The Doctor's face, in contrast, lit up. "I've just had an even better thought!", he suddenly claimed and began to pace around the other three until he was standing right between Sarah and Harry. "Tell me, what is a reflection made of?"

"Glass and silver…?", guessed the medical officer, but his half-alien friend shook his head.

"No, that's a mirror, Harry. I'm talking about the reflection. The things we see. Maybe that's how I should ask: _What enables us to see?_ " Despite the general lack of an answer, he was waiting for someone to reply something.

"Maybe you would just cut to the point, Doctor...", the Brigadier, who was getting very impatient about this little game, asked of him.

" _ **Light!"**_ The Doctor gave the word a slightly special pronunciation as he answered his own question. "Without light, the mirrors cannot see us. It's reasonably dark outside, and the light switches are right there-" He pointed at a set of switches near the entrance.

"But Doctor", Sarah looked up at him with a frown of worry on her face. "Without the light, we won't see anything, either."

"I could ask my men to bring their night vision gear.", proposed the Brigadier, but was stopped by the Doctor again before he was able to take action.

"No, leave the special equipment out.", he demanded, "They have their own sources of light. Weak ones, yes, but they might still be enough to trigger the mirrors' artificial sentience." In his attempt to calm the nerves of his companions, the Doctor glanced into each of their faces while he explained. "But it will be fine, you'll see. All we have to do is to walk in a straight line from here into the centre of the corridors and take the tetrahedron." With squinted eyes he attempted to estimate the distance between the start of the corridor and the middle of the warehouse. "What is that, only 40 or 50 yards away?" He smiled teasingly at the two military men. "Why, I could do it blindfolded!"

The Brigadier shot him an annoyed glance before he nodded approvingly. "All right, Doctor. We will give your idea a try."

"Great!" Pleased to hear the response, the Doctor's smile grew a little wider. "Then, would you kindly stay behind to operate the light switch, Brigadier? We will call to you once we're clear, so you can switch it back on." Although he looked at the Brigadier, he walked a few steps backwards in the direction of the corridor's entrance. "But make no mistake! If we are caught standing in the middle of the corridor, we will be easy pickings." Before he turned around, he exchanged a few glances with his companions, just to make sure that they, too, approved of his plan, since he was about to drag them into it.

Sarah had no objections, and neither did Harry, although they were not what one would call ' _happy_ 'about it.

"Don't worry, I trust your judgement of the situation.", Lethbridge-Stewart reassured them.

While mentally preparing for the task they were about to face, the trio of heroes positioned themselves in front of the nearest mirror corridor. The whole of the situation made Sarah nervous, but she intended not to let it show. As her gaze wandered over to Harry to her right, she noticed that he was most likely feeling the same, and that he was not as good at hiding it as he probably thought he was. It was the frown on his face which gave his true emotions away.  
"Are you scared of the dark?", Sarah asked him teasingly. Not to make fun of him, but to encourage him to prove her wrong.

"Me? No, not of the dark.", Harry answered, then chuckled nervously. "The mirrors, however, now that's a different story..."

The Doctor had overheard their conversation, and decided to join before the two of them could begin to count up all the reasons why they should be worried. "They won't harm us while we can't see our reflections. Try to think of that, Harry." Although he had addressed the medical officer, he showed both of them a toothy grin.

Sarah was smiling back almost instinctively, and could feel the optimism oozing out of his words. There was a certain confidence about being back together, the three of them, in the midst of danger, like old times. Not a fleeting thought of fear could darken her mood now.

That was, until the Doctor exchanged a decisive nod with the Brigadier, and the world turned black.


	23. No Light, No Light (Ep4)

Suddenly, as darkness engulfed Sarah from one moment to the next, she was frighteningly reminded of the time on Karn when she had lost her eye sight. But although the fright from her memory caused her jumpiness to triple, she also felt her remaining senses sharpen as her mind sought for the presence of her friends. She strained herself to listen for the sound of breathing and to feel the faint warmth of Harry's body somewhere to her right. There was no need to be afraid of anything, she reminded herself.

The sound of someone's soles on the concrete floor was so loud in comparison to what she had expected to hear that she was almost startled by it. Coming from the left of her and moving forwards, she knew it was the Doctor, but the idea of losing him to the pitch black darkness and the dangers that lurked within only scared her further. She had made the mistake to let go of his hand after being blinded once, and realized now that she did not want it to happen again.

At the risk of taking poor Harry with her against his will, Sarah reached for his arm, knowing well where he had been before the lights had gone out and dragged him with her to follow the sound of steps into the inky nothingness. "I'm right here, Sarah, no need to rush!", Harry said, almost too casually, as he stumbled after her. Maybe he had noticed that she was not as brave as she had attempted to be, maybe it was just a bit of his old-fashioned courtesy talking, or maybe it was both, but either way, she wouldn't want to miss him any less now than the Doctor.

"Doctor, wait for us…!", Sarah hissed and held out a hand as she tried to establish a link with the man somewhere in front of her. Although hoping to brush the corduroy of the Doctor's jacket, all she felt was the air, and its soft movements between her fingers as she walked forwards. He didn't reply to her call, and neither did he wait up, so Sarah was forced to keep moving. It was not before long that the idea of getting lost entered her mind. The problem that she couldn't see and was vaguely following the echo of steps meant that both she and Harry could possibly drift away from the Doctor, and might find themselves walking straight into one of these dreaded mirrors left or right.

But then, something unexpectedly brushed the cloth of her outstretched hand's sleeve. By all common sense, she should have been startled by the touch, yet a familiar presence caused her to remain calm. Sarah reached out again, and this time, her hand touched the skin of another. The strange coldness of it meant that it could only be the Doctor who was seeking not to lose his companions. And so, when he linked his fingers with hers, she was more than simply relieved to know him nearby. It was as though the physical link between the three of them, with her in the middle, strengthened each other's confidence as well as their fear. There was no way to explain just how she knew, but through the touch, Sarah could tell that Harry was not a whole lot less worried than she was and that underneath the Doctor's outward courage, he was just as frightened and nervous as the rest of them. ' _Just another_ _ordinary man_ _facing the unknown…_ _'_ As the thought crossed her mind, Sarah gripped the Doctor's hand a little tighter, hoping to send a reassuring feeling of support back through the link. She wanted him to be as fearless again as the Time Lord she remembered.

Although the presence of her best friends was strong now, so was the mirror's presence. There was a faint humming in the background which soon filled her ears along with their echoing footsteps. Sometimes she thought she saw the palest of glows in the corner of her eye. The impression that the strange tetrahedron-shaped machine reflected in the mirrors was scanning them, watching them, left an uneasiness that struggled for dominance over her mind against the reassuring proximity of those that she wanted to protected and was protected by.  
They progressed slowly, if not warily, but with every step towards the centre of danger, the presentiment of something lunging at them out of the shadows grew stronger.

She couldn't tell how far they had made it, or how far it was still to go, although she secretly wished it was further than she assumed it was. But when a blinding light struck her, her wish remained unfulfilled.

All of a sudden, someone had turned the large industrial lamps on the ceiling back on. Sarah blinked, confused as her eyes struggled to adjust to the abrupt change, but even through pale colours and a blurred vision, she immediately realized they stood right in the middle of the corridor, only halfway to the centre.

"-What was that?" It was the voice of the Brigadier coming from the corner of the warehouse.

" **Turn it back off! QUICKLY!"** , the Doctor yelled sharply at him. The panic in his voice was unexpected, but underlined the danger they were in.

After her eyes had finally adjusted, Sarah was met with the frightening sight of her own and her friends' reflection being replicated across the mirrors tenfold. And that wasn't all. Some of the false tetrahedra started to glow, and there were more, other people appearing in the mirror images. She could only guess that those were the reflections of some of the poor victims. How did she know those weren't the people themselves? Their faces, their haunting, emotionless stares. There was something very disturbing about each and every one of them. Sarah had never in her own life looked at her face in the mirror and felt so deeply disturbed by the notion in her own hazel coloured eyes. A mechanical, inhuman look.

To add further to their despair, the Brigadier called back: **"I can't! It won't turn off!"** He hurried over to the corridor's entrance, but stopped abruptly as his eyes fell on the false images of people. His hand was hovering over the pistol on his belt, but he remembered the Doctor's lecture and decided otherwise. Except that he was lacking a good plan B now.

Sarah hardly dared to move, afraid to trigger a reaction. In fact, she was even afraid to breathe. Only Harry was looking around himself, preparing to defend himself in the case of an attack, and so he let go of Sarah's hand to raise his fists instead. He turned his back to her, trying to put her in a safe place between him and the Doctor. That was also when she realized anew that the mirrors were all around them. Just in the moment that the danger in her back became as real a feeling as the Doctor's fingers between her own, the tall professor was suddenly pulled away from her.

It all happened so suddenly. She barely caught a glance of the hands that had led to the Doctor's fall by catching his ankles and the arm which wrapped around his waist, before she was dragged in with him. A scream of fright escaped her as the Doctor was swallowed by the mirror behind her and their linked hands had just become her doom. The same reflection that had protruded from its frame to pull in her friend now reached for Sarah's wrist. At the same time, another pair of hands grabbed at her legs as well.

The pull was incredibly strong. More than it should be for what looked like a mere copy of herself. The Doctor's hand slid through the seemingly open mirror surface without a sound and took Sarah's with it. His face was already gone behind layers of other reflections and a mix of blurred colours. She should have let go – he had already – but she refused to. Not while there was still hope. Another sudden yank, and before Sarah could even realize what was happening, she slid halfway into the other world. She might have been gone completely, had it not been for the hands that had grabbed her still uncaught arm. It was Harry, who pulled her back into the other direction.

" **Hold on, Sarah!"**

Throwing her head around, Sarah gazed up into his pale eyes and knew, in that specific moment, that his heroic attempt at saving her would be in vain. The inhuman reflections were not letting go, and the strain on her arms and legs made her feel as though she had been put on a rack. Waves of pain rushed through her muscles and grew even more intense in her shoulder as Harry bravely stepped against the mirror's frame to steady his counter-pull. If he was not going to be pulled in with her, he would snap her shoulder. Either way, he was not going to be successful. Although Sarah wanted to stay optimistic, she could not see how he was going to make it.

So she did the last option that was left to her and opened the hand with which she held onto Harry's arm, allowing the reflections to drag her into their pocket universe with them. He struggled to keep her out, not wanting to accept that she had given in, but her change of mind had come as too much of a surprise for him to act against the sudden increase in the downwards pull.

The last thing she felt was Harry's fingernails scratching along her sleeve and the last thing she saw of him was his horrified face staring at her before the mirror's surface closed from the inside and he vanished from her sight along with her only exit.

==== ==== End of EPISODE 4 ==== ====

* * *

 _And that's the Episode 4 cliffhanger!_  
 _I know this Episode is a little shorter than the last, but that's going to be alright - I have a feeling Episode 5 is going to need some extra pages. I don't have much to comment on this Episode, actually, though I can say I am very glad not having to write the skips in time anymore. They made the past chapters feel a little too much like they were cut in bits. From here on, the story will progress fluently, and there will be no missing out on entire days or weeks._  
 _I've noticed a little too late that there isn't an actual "Harry" POV part in this chapter. But if it's any reassurance, he has an amazing part to play in the upcoming chapter...!_


	24. An Echo Fades (Ep5)

==== ==== EPISODE 5 ==== ====

 _{ The big finale! }_

==== ==== Harry Sullivan ==== ====

Never had Harry grasped the concept of relative time better than in the moment Sarah's arm slipped from his hands. He could have sworn that what really must have happened in a mere second had stretched to half a minute from his point of view as he stared in shock at Sarah's frightened face while she was being pulled into the mirror's so-called pocket universe. Even after she had vanished and the mirror's reflection returned to normal for once, Harry stood in front of it, paralysed, simply struck by the feeling of utter helplessness.  
On the verge of his conscience, he noticed the Brigadier bellowing through the warehouse. Orders, most likely, as was to be expected in this situation, but Harry didn't feel addressed by any of them. In fact, it was surprising he had heard him in this moment at all, because the one thought that fully occupied his mind was his own failure.

Had he known he would be unable to pull Sarah back out, Harry might have preferred to follow his friends to the other side, but now, as luck would have it, the reflections were no longer interested in the medical officer. In the faint hope of opening the gateway somehow, Harry pressed his hands on the silver surface of the mirror he had just lost Sarah and the Doctor to, yet the looking glass refused to reveal its secret to him. It had simply returned to its inactive state. Like any other old mirror, it served only to show Harry his own face, distorted by the feelings of despair and anger that had begun to take over his mind. Defeating who or whatever was behind the tetrahedron-shaped menace had suddenly become a more personal matter than ever!  
But before he could continue this train of thought, a sudden, loud commotion caught his attention. As Harry swirled around, he saw his fellow UNIT members streaming into the warehouse and heading straight for the corridor of the mirror maze that he was standing in.

" **NO! D** **ON** **'** **T** **! Stay out!"** , Harry yelled at them with hands raised, but without the authority of a Doctor or a Brigadier, his words, sadly, meant very little to them. And so, by the time the first soldier had set a foot into the range of the most outer mirror, it was already too late. The dozen reflections of Harry were immediately joined by the soldier's – and the mirrors' artificial intelligence was triggered again.

In the wink of an eye, the soldier was grabbed by his own image and pulled in, while at precisely the same time, two frames further into Harry's direction, a perfect copy of the man stepped out of another mirror. It happened all so fast and so fluently that all the UNIT members could only stare in shock at the disturbing event before their eyes. What struck Harry the most was that, this time, the three-dimensional reflection was not just a pair of arms to grab someone with, but a complete body. Had it not been for a certain artificial, almost malicious vibe that Harry got from the walking image, he could have mistaken it for an actual human being.

Once the initial shock had passed, the medical officer hurried down the corridor to help the UNIT infantry. Yet by the time he had made that decision, the mirrors had already registered several of the soldiers, and so he barely made it past three of the support frames before he was forced to stop in front of a second reflection that was climbing out of its two-dimensional prison. Again, it was the image of one of UNIT's foot soldiers.  
Harry turned around hectically, hoping to find another way out, but even the way further into the centre of the star-burst pattern was starting to become populated by artificial life forms. Very quickly, Harry had to realize how hopeless his situation was. He was absolutely, positively, surrounded...

While he was still uncertain where to turn to, a fight broke out between the soldiers and their copies back at the corridor's entrance. Since the Brigadier's men had not brought their rifles, they tried to subdue the artificial people with the power of their fists alone, but given the reflections' unnatural strength, they were a poor match. The fact that another small party of UNIT soldiers tried to enter the trap from another corridor did not improve their situation, either. Instead, it merely caused more of the mirror's to wake from their standby mode.

In between two of many glimpses about himself, Harry caught sight of a pair of hands reaching for his throat just in time. As the reflection advanced towards him, the medical officer managed to duck and step back. In response to the assault on his life, he bravely threw a punch at his attacker, but even though he managed to hit the man's jaw, the effect of his punch was a lot less helpful than he had hoped and a lot more painful for him than he had imagined. It was like trying to break through a brick wall! Just as he had feared in that moment, the reflection barely acknowledged any pain and while Harry recovered from the shock that had gone through his fist into his body, it grabbed his arm to pull him past instead. Albeit stumbling, Harry somehow avoided to land on his knees, yet as he turned back to face his attacker, his hope was steadily melting away along with his courage. If physical combat was not an option, what else should he try to do? Ask them to take him prisoner? But they did not look the type. For his friends Harry would have given his life, but these… _things_ , they were ready to take his life and give nothing in return. The sound of people wrestling with each other reminded him that the rest of UNIT present was in the same dratted situation as him. He didn't have too much time to think about their struggle, though, because the reflection was slowly closing in on him again. Instinctively, Harry retreated backwards, although he kept glancing behind himself, afraid to bump into yet another enemy along his way. It was during one of these glances behind himself that Harry witnessed a third image crawling out of its frame.  
This time, however, something slightly, but significantly different was happening. Instead of stepping out of the pocket universe fluently, Harry noticed a pair of thin arms wrapping around the false soldier's waist and trying to hold him back.

" **Harry!"** A female voice escaped the pocket universe behind the soldier. **"Harry Sullivan! You** **must help them** **!** **Hurry,** **over here** **! While it's still open!"** It wasn't Sarah's voice, that was for sure, but this one was not unfamiliar, either.

Since there was not much of another option left to him, Harry hurried over to the frame in question. This particular mirror was especially big, probably taken from a palace dining hall or an equally grand place. Three people could have examined themselves easily in it. But as the medical officer stepped in front of the mirror's far end, where he was out of his enemies' reach for a few seconds, there was no reflection of himself displayed.  
Instead, there was only the image of the soldier stuck halfway in, halfway out of the mirror, the blur of colours which seemed to make up the pocket universe beyond and a short, brown-haired girl in her twenties, who was the only reason the artificial man had not yet climbed out to strangle Harry.

"Clara Oswald...?!", a surprised medical officer blurted out. He had only seen her about a day ago, and was quite shocked to find her on the wrong side of the mirrors now. But there was no mistake: The girl fighting to keep the mirror's gateway open was definitely her. She was even still wearing her university uniform.

Clara gasped for air, trying to get out a few words before she tightened her grip. **"You** **must** **help the** **Smiths** **, Harry!"** , she shouted over to him.

There wasn't enough time to even begin to wonder what had happened to her or where that extra confidence in her voice came from. Why she was not asking him to pull her out, but specifically asking him to save his friends... If he would not be convinced of something else, he could have sworn that Clara knew something very important he did not. But as it were, Harry did not have the time to question her and instead, decided to trust her in the wink of an eye. The other reflection by whom he had been attacked by earlier was not giving him the chance to think his decision over, anyway. Once glance over his shoulder, and Harry saw that it had almost closed the distance which he had gained by running away to this specific mirror earlier.  
The UNIT officer held out his hands to touch the mirror's surface, expecting to feel a wall of glass underneath his fingertips, but this time, there was nothing in his way. Since he realized much too late that he should have taken hold of the mirror's frame before climbing in, he lost his balance and tumbled forwards into the other world.

…

The first thing Harry noted about the pocket universe was that it had a cement floor. Pretty much like the one in the warehouse, except maybe a little smoother. Although he assumed his landing had been far below of any artistic ranking, he was grateful that he had not fallen from a great height and could not complain about injuries, either.

A short cry of Clara then caused Harry to scramble back to his feet twice as fast. As he turned his head around, he saw the soldier shoving her to the floor and towering over the brave student like the menace that he was. She hastily tried to back away, but not only did the reflection close in on her immediately, it also raised a fist, ready to bring it crashing down onto the poor girl's head any time.

" **Oh no you DON'T!"** , Harry called out and was back in action faster than he had expected himself to be. The medical officer sprung to his feet and launched himself at the soldier's image. The feeling of him colliding with the false man's figure was like throwing oneself against a stone pillar, but at least he was able to take the pillar down with him. Still in the advantageous moment of surprise, Harry tried to position himself on top of his enemy and strike a punch at his head to knock him unconscious. One might argue that this was not the best course of action since he had already failed in doing so before, but Harry's brain was not the best when it came to making fast decisions…

As was to be expected, his counterattack failed remarkably. His fist was stopped by the other man's hand, whose fingers now wrapped around Harry's knuckles and pressed them together. It took only moments for the medical officer to realize the reflection was trying to reduce his hand to a mass of broken bones and tendons. Knowing the exact make-up of the inside of his fist only made matters worse, and he had not even called on the picture in his mind consciously. At the first cracking sound of bones being pushed out of their right place and the first wave of pain rushing down his arm, Harry got back to his feet and tried to pull away from the man.

"Argh…! If you would… kindly stop this, maybe we could talk it over…?", Harry begged as he attempted to undo the fingers around his fist with his other hand – unsuccessfully.

" **LET HIM GO!"** , shrieked a woman's , Clara was back in the fray with them. Instead of making an escape as Harry had hoped she would have, she had returned to help him! Still... he wished she had not. After all, what could she do against this brick wall of a man?  
But to his immense surprise, she fearlessly wrapped her arms around the reflection's eyes and throat and attempted to drag him away from the medical officer. It got his attention all too well as Harry's fist was suddenly freed, but instead the soldier was thrashing about now, standing up and trying to reach the girl in his back to throw her over his shoulder.

At the same time, Harry backed a few steps away. His hand was pounding with pain, but as far as his medical knowledge allowed him to tell in the brief few seconds he had to massage the sore spot, nothing appeared to be broken. It was just in that moment, he firmly decided, that he had to be an even greater fool if he attempted to hit a reflection in its face again.

" **Clara, get away! RUN!"** , Harry shouted at her. She was safe while she was in the soldier's blind spot, but it was only a matter of moments until the moving image had freed itself again.

His warning call came too late. The reflection threw itself around and, in one violent, fluent motion, caught Clara's throat with a hand. He had not expected those big brown eyes of hers to grow even bigger, but the shock that overwhelmed her had caused them to. The young woman's hands immediately reached up to her throat, but she had even less strength to undo the soldier's grip than Harry had had moments before. Fearing what would follow next, the reluctant hero rushed forward again, but this time around the soldier had expected his course of action and struck behind himself. He knocked the medical soldier back down to the floor like a man would swat a fly. Harry felt very much like one, too, as he landed square on his back. His head hitting the cement floor again gave his sense of balance a good whack and the world spun for a moment or two.  
He blinked and lost sight of the fight for a few seconds as he hurried to somehow get back on his feet – and that was the moment when he heard it.

The noise was unmistakably the one noise a human neck should not make.

Harry raised his face in horror. He couldn't see the whole picture – he wouldn't have wanted to, anyway – but there was Clara's body collapsing to the floor before the reflection's feet, lifeless and limp.

Whereas time had felt very slow as he had lost Sarah from his hands, now time felt surprisingly fast as Harry's mind worked through the horrible scenario which had unfolded before him. The first emotion which hit him was the shock. He wanted to deny that Clara had just fallen victim to this monster, but it had happened so plainly before his eyes that no denial was possible. Then, anger welled up inside of him, the thought of quick vengeance crossed his mind, but as Harry gazed at his enemy, the furious frown was washed from his face. The only thing he could do was to find himself dead on the floor next to Clara if he settled for the violent option. Besides, even if he could miraculously overthrow the reflection, the victory would be of use to no one. So last but not least, the initial horror, fear and sadness returned to fill the emptiness in Harry's mind.  
He backed further away as the soldier turned around and came for him.

"I'm so sorry, Clara. So sorry. There was nothing I could do.", the medical officer muttered to himself, having failed his oath to preserve life again, though the reflection could not care less about his grief. Harry tried to glance at Clara's unmoving figure behind him, secretly begging to see her twitch so he knew there was a chance he could double back and help. But the soldier advancing towards him meant that he could not keep his eyes on her for long enough. He had to get away. The hope was too faint, he eventually decided, and with a gulp, turned around and started to run.

Harry ran and ran. Without looking back once, he ran as far as his legs carried him.


	25. The Definition Of Care (Ep5)

The mirror world was a strange place. It looked mostly like the warehouse, but through two opposite mirrors, reflected back and forwards to infinity. There were the support frames into which the mirrors had been installed in the real world, yet not only were they lacking the actual mirrors, but there were so many of them, a truly infinite line of frames, in parallel left and right of Harry. Behind each of them was another corridor, and another. Dozens or more, perhaps, thanks to the artificial nature of this place. It was rather confusing to look at. Aside from the grief that his mind still had to process, just staring into the infinity of this place gave Harry a good headache. The walls and roof of the warehouse itself, as well as the far ends of the corridors were all lost in a thick, white mist, which was the only thing that helped to make the nature of this world a little easier to process by a human brain. Even so, the mist itself, too, had a very bizarre nature to it: Though Harry was still running, he never got any closer to it. Whatever it was, it was not natural, that was for sure.

As it soon turned out, it really did not matter how far Harry ran, or into which direction. There was simply no end to the corridor, and no wall or roof of the warehouse ever came into sight. At some point, the soldier had vanished in the distance Harry had put behind himself, and he was left alone eventually. Although he was seemingly in no immediate danger any more, he also had no idea where he was now. Everything looked the same, and this world was, as far as he could tell, indeed infinite.

The medical officer slowed his steps, although breathing heavily, to get a better look at his surroundings. Every couple of yards, there was a tetrahedron lying on the floor near the bottom of the support frames. Obviously, none of them were real, and Harry did not dare to mess with them, anyway. After everything he had seen he was even less keen to inspect them again. These kind of matters, he preferred to leave to the Doctor.

 _The Doctor and Sarah…_

The thought brought images of his friends to his mind. What if they had been attacked as well? Although Harry knew the Time Lord could pack a punch, and Sarah could get surprisingly violent if attacked, he was afraid that they could hardly hold their ground against a reflection, let alone two or more. Aside from that, the Doctor was still affected by his steadily changing metabolism, and another sudden feeling of faintness was, in consequence, most certainly not just his end, but the end of both of them, given Sarah's total commitment to saving his life.

Harry stopped, trying to catch his breath again since his slow walking had not helped much. He leaned forwards onto his knees, bowing his head down as he was suddenly feeling rather hopeless. Lost, in a pocket universe filled with sentient, super-strong, malicious reflections. Clara was dead, and for all he knew his friends might be dead already as well. The medical officer forced himself by the power of his will to take a few deep, steady breaths. He didn't want to succumb to what both the pessimist and the realist inside of him told him, though truth be spoken: He had never been much of an optimist, either. As he forced his thoughts back on track, he pressed his eyes firmly shut.  
If he was in this world and still alive, so might be the Doctor, Sarah, Benton, Liz and everyone else as well!

It was at that moment as he stood still, that he heard the distant voices. Though the words were unintelligible at first, they soon became clearer, just as the distinctive timbre of the voice Harry was familiar with.

"..How should I know how to get out of here? I don't have an answer to everything, you know?"

"Then make a few assumptions, and let's theorize about it!"

Harry took a deep breath and sighed in relief, muttering to himself: "Oh, Sarah, old girl…!" This slightly cheerful, high-pitched voice… She wouldn't believe him how glad he was to hear it, even if he had the words to describe the feeling to her. Once the dark thoughts had broken away from his mind, the medical officer stood up straight again and began to move about, now trying to identify the direction the voices were coming from.

"It's a pocket universe.", said the Doctor, as they thankfully continued talking. "There, that's as good as my assumption gets at the moment."

Quickly, Harry settled on a cardinal direction and hurried his steps. **"Doctor!"** , he called out for his friends. **"Sarah!"**

Yet they went on with their conversation as though they couldn't hear him.  
"Well, here's another one: Say, we went in through a mirror, so maybe we go out through a mirror?", Sarah suggested, but her idea was dismissed by the Doctor within the following second.

"Now that's just silly, Sarah. Why would they put a mirror inside a mirror, hm? Or have you spotted one yet?"

The white light cleared in the distance and three large blobs of colour became visible. One was dark blue, one brown, and one sort of redd-ish. The coat Sarah had borrowed from her aunt had a not very fashionable red plaid pattern… But as Harry closed in on his friends, he halted abruptly and stared back at them, just as they were staring at him.

Sarah and the Doctor, although both of them were still in good health, were accompanied by someone else. Harry's gaze met the pale-coloured eyes of the third man, and they blinked at each with the exact identical, puzzled expression on their faces. From the tiny dark curls on his head down to the shine of his shoes, the stranger was a perfect copy of the medical officer.

" _ **Careful, Doctor! He's a reflection!"**_ , Harry and his counterpart said in unison while also pointing at each other.

" _ **You better step away from-"**_ A short fright washed over him as he attempted to continue speaking on his own, but the reflection was mimicking him perfectly. Like this, his friends wouldn't be able to tell the difference!

However, they had realized by themselves the danger they were in. The Doctor placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder before he began to take several steps back from the false Harry who must have accompanied them in the mirror world so far. Through his non-verbal instruction, the young woman stayed close to him while at the same time, her gaze went back and forth between Harry and his image as she most likely tried to spot a difference between them.

"What are you doing, Doctor?", the reflection suddenly began to speak out of its own accord. It responded to the half-Time Lord's suspicious glare with a clueless shrug. "Can you not tell that he is the copy? Now, I've been with you this whole time, haven't I?"

A shiver ran down Harry's spine to see his reflection talk and walk, much like he would himself. Any other image he had encountered so far was driven by the most basic instruction to kill… or to pull someone in, but this one was doing a bloody good job at trying to fool his friends. "He's lying!", Harry blurted out like a school kid, who lacked any real evidence and just wanted someone to be punished by the teacher. Pointing at the reflection once more failed to give more credibility to his statement as well.

"Harry...", the Doctor addressed both of them. His glare was directed at both, and he slightly dragged out the officer's name as he spoke it. "...Why don't you tell us something only the real one of you would know?" He stood close behind Sarah with a hand on her arm, ready to pull her further away with him if one of the medical officers made a false move towards them.

"Come now, Doctor. You know I'm rubbish at those mind games.", complained Harry. How was he supposed to know what bit of his identity the reflection had or had not copied along with his appearance? He was a doctor, one who had specialized in ailments of the body, not a psychiatrist. Harry always liked his problems to be physical, measurable, and real. Then again, that train of thought reminded him of something else: There was a rather simple way to prove his identity, as his sore fist had witnessed earlier…  
"Unlike me, that lad over there isn't even a being of flesh and blood. His physiology is that of a brick wall!" Harry nodded towards his copy.

" _Excuse_ me?" Said reflection raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly feeling offended. The cheek! Harry was indeed offended, but by the copy's insolence of trying to imitate his feelings.

The Doctor blinked at Harry, unimpressed by his impossible suggestion. "I will hardly throw a punch at him just to confirm your point, will I?"

"Eh.. Yes, I suppose it's better you don't.", stammered the original, as he realized that his suggestion was, after all, probably vastly dangerous to begin with. In secret, Harry wished he had kept his mouth shut.

"Well, then, you've had your try.", stated the reflection and shot him a brief, angry glare before turning back to the Doctor and Sarah. It was acting mostly casual while attempting to answer to the Doctor's original request. "Here's something only we would know: Two weeks back the Doctor and I went out to the sea. There was an… _accident_ and we were thrown overboard."

"If you're telling him that old story you might as well remind him that it was his fault, after all.", huffed Harry at his counterpart. He had said it without thinking much into it, the words came straight off his head this time. "Maybe I let go of the rope too early, but he's too darn stubborn to admit he's got no clue how to tie a proper sailor's knot."

"We've been over this already, Harry.", responded the Doctor, mildly annoyed by the accusation.

"What does that matter at a time like this?" The reflection turned to Harry quite suddenly, and he thought he caught a glimpse of a malicious thought in its eyes. Apparently it was upset that he was about to head into an argument.

But Harry stood tall. **"** _ **Everything matters!**_ **"** , he insisted and even dared to raise his voice a little. Something he did very rarely, but he felt it was important right now. Desperate to further prove his point, Harry started pacing around and flailing his arms a bit as he sought hard for the words to give them another example.

"Like, back at UNIT… Like, that time Sarah stole a box of tea from my office!"

"It was for a very important guest!" Sarah defended herself instantly.

"Yes, I know, old girl.", Harry nodded at her understandingly, before he explained what it was about her action that had upset him. "You could have asked, still."

It was a matter of etiquette, of character and attitude. Of course he didn't care about the tea, he cared about Sarah! Care, by his definition, was not just about keeping another safe, but about wanting them to improve their personality, moral or skill, as well. Maybe Harry lacked the right words to explain it just like it was, but it was the way he felt. And thanks to the reflection's insolent way of imitating him, the emotion was particularly strong with him right now. He shot the tall man behind Sarah a strict look. "And just while we're at it: Doctor?"

"What else?", he responded, nowhere less annoyed than he had been before.

Harry took a breath and then said, as fluently as though he had practised the sentence: "I want you to apologize to Sarah sometime, because she has been worried sick about you."

Barely had he finished the sentence as the upset expression fell away from the Doctor's face. Instead, he looked puzzled back at Harry first, before he turned his gaze to Sarah, just at the same time as she looked up at him in return. The Doctor shrugged, then shook his head with his brows furrowed in a way that spoke an inaudible _"Sorry, I didn't realize…!"_.

"It's really not necessary, Doctor… It wasn't your fault.", Sarah quickly reassured him, rolling her eyes to signify the unimportance of it, though if Harry had read her facial expression correctly, then she was also slightly embarrassed that he had brought it up at all. Without him to tell, the Doctor would never know what she had been through in his month-long absence.

"You're just trying to distract from the obvious!", Harry's own voice cut through the arising silence as the reflection accused him. "In case you've forgotten, we're stuck here. There are more important matters at hand!" It was downright angry now at him, and he suddenly thought he looked rather fearsome when upset. Though, that might have been just his impression since he was so far the only one who knew what that thing really was.

Just in the moment the reflection took a step towards Harry, the Doctor, too, stepped forwards. "I don't think so!", he decided, before he shot the medical officer a glance and a confident smile. _He had figured it out!_ "You see, Harry – the real Harry over there – he's right. The little things in life do matter, especially to him."

As Sarah smiled happily at the original and waved him over, Harry let out another big sigh of relief, before he finally hurried to catch up with his friends. All the while, his reflection stared at them, perplexed at its own defeat.

"And you said you're rubbish at this.", Sarah chuckled at him, receiving an endlessly glad smile from Harry in return.

The Doctor then cut straight back to business. "Why have you followed us into the pocket universe, Harry? Did they drag you in, too?"

He was almost about to tell them about Clara, but before he could get a word out, his sight fell past the Doctor at the reflection, which had just lost its human-like liveliness and the same old, disturbingly mechanical look returned to its eyes. About the same time, two more reflections emerged from the mist. This time, they were copies of the Doctor and Sarah...

"I'm sorry, Doctor, but I believe the storytelling has to wait...", Harry hinted at the brewing danger, they all turned to follow his gaze, and then the next thing he knew they were running again.


	26. Hope (Ep5)

Running away from the reflections, along the infinite support frames towards the white nothingness...

"Where are we running to, Doctor? Everything's the same here, isn't it?", asked Harry between breaths, unable to slow down or he would have fallen behind instantly.

"We're running towards the exit, Harry!", the Doctor called back from the head of their little party, upon which Sarah was quick to add a remark.

"You don't even know where that is!", she yelled back.

The Doctor stopped so abruptly that Harry and Sarah almost would have stumbled into him, as he suddenly changed corridors by climbing through a random frame. It made no difference, though. A quick glance over his shoulder told the Lieutenant Surgeon that, despite the change in their escape route, they were still being followed. At least the reflections were _only_ super-strong, but not super-fast on top of it. Right now, Harry was immensely grateful for that.

"No, I don't!", the Doctor admitted eventually. "But where would we be without some wishful thinking?"

Next, he was sprinting down the corridor, with his companions close on his heels. Just as Harry's feet began to burn as a means of protest to this ongoing chase, a new shape appeared in the distance. At first nothing but a very large speck of brilliant blue, the box-shaped object soon came into clear view. A smile crept its way on Harry's face.  
It was hope! There was no better word to describe the feeling that spread within his mind, and Sarah's most likely, too, at the moment their eyes were met with the sight of the old thing.

" **The TARDIS!"** , Sarah cheerfully called out, and there was a laugh between her panting and the words she had squeezed out.

"That's… the TARDIS?" Very unlike for him, the Doctor wondered about it not only for a moment, but it even caused him to slow down as he caught sight of the object.

Before he could fall behind, though, Sarah had grabbed him by his wrist and was pulling him along. "Don't stop and stare!", she ordered him.

Harry had never seen a police box looking more out of place than here, in this strange, infinite mirror world. It sat squeezed between two lines of support frames, the doors facing their way, almost as if it had been waiting for them. A feasible escape plan finally in sight, Harry's burning feet were soon forgotten, and between the sound of his pursuer's footsteps and the sight of the TARDIS, he gave it his all to run a little faster. So did Sarah and the Doctor, and they arrived at the box's doors a little earlier than Harry. They stopped so short of it that they would have almost crashed into the front side. Eager to get past the doors, Sarah was trying to push the right side of the entrance open, although she should know as well as Harry that it would be locked.

"Are you sure all three of us will fit in there…?", the Doctor asked warily, suddenly distracted by the box's outer dimensions, yet neither Harry nor Sarah had the time to help him out of his confusion right now.

"Key, Doctor! The key!", the young woman demanded, while panicking slightly. Her shaking hands were raised, ready to pull the chain from the tall man's neck if he failed to act quickly enough.

Harry wished he had not looked back, but the reflections were catching up very fast now that the three of them had stopped to examine the police box's doors. It was only a matter of seconds until he and his friends would be subject to a serious beating if they did not manage to get into the TARDIS immediately.

Thankfully, albeit not entirely aware of what was going on, the Doctor was still quick to react. He lifted the TARDIS' spade-shaped key from underneath his scarf and unlocked the door as he was supposed to. Since Sarah was already pressing against the door, the three of them quite literally tumbled in as the door swung open.

==== ==== Sarah-Jane Smith ==== ====

Once inside, there wasn't really much time to get a good look at the console room interior. Sarah rose immediately back to her feet to help her friends clear the time machine's entrance. Once she had pressed the door shut behind them, Harry placed himself with his back against it, trying his best to keep it closed as already the first reflection crashed into it from outside. Sarah felt the door shaking so violently underneath her hands that, for a second, she thought it might burst open, and the two of them would be thrown off their feet by the impact.

" **LOCK** the door, Doctor!", Harry called out. "I won't be able to keep them out for long!" He was holding onto the door frame with all his might, but Sarah feared he was looking to the wrong man for help.

The Doctor stood a few steps away from the door, amazed by his surroundings. He looked around the console room as if he had never seen it, or anything like it, before. Although Harry's call for help reached through to him eventually, he merely began to look about himself more hectically. It was obvious from his reaction that he had no clue what to do or how to react. This mental setback came at the worst of times: If anything, Sarah would have expected the TARDIS to break loose a tidal wave of memories within her friend. Yet whatever the sight of his trusty time craft was doing to him, it appeared to have added only to his inner confusion and conflicted state of mind.

Meanwhile, however, Sarah was not going to place a bet on Harry's capability of holding back three reflections at once. In a flash, she ran past the Doctor towards the hexagonal furniture piece in the middle of the room to pull down several of its wooden covers until she eventually found the lever, which – she hoped, at least – was the control of the door lock. Once she had thrown it, the young woman turned her head around to look back at the door. There was a snapping sound coming from behind Harry, and he took a few unsteady steps away from it, while he still eyed the double doors warily for another five seconds. He had very good reasons to do so as well, because there was still a faint banging coming from outside.

Sarah glanced at the Doctor from her place at the console. Before, it had been difficult to tell about the confusion in his head just from his expression, but right now it was very plain to see. His eyes searched the room still, taking in every detail of the interior lining. "It's...uhm...", he began and lifted a hand, but failed to find the right words.

Sarah stepped away from the controls and hurried back to his side to complete the sentence for him. "It's _bigger on the inside_ , yes, we know.", she hastily said, but he could hardly spare her a glance.

"...It's the concept of dimensional transcendentalism put into active use!", he eventually decided to finish the sentence himself, albeit differently. A broad smile had spread on his face for but a moment and a spark of fascination had appeared in his eye. "Oh! I'd always imagined it would be at least as impressive as this!", he added, truly overwhelmed by the design of the machine he had travelled in for centuries now. Unfortunately, his suddenly good mood did not last for very long.

Eventually, his sight had to fall on the brass coated contraption hanging from the TARDIS' ceiling. The joy disappeared from his face, and instead he eyed the machine fearfully and confused. Sarah could almost see the burning trail of the memory which must have scraped past his consciousness like a meteor scraping Earth's atmosphere. The disorientation in the Doctor's stare revealed to his best friend that he had, in fact, remembered nothing at all yet, and was acting merely against the vague notions of thought that were pouring out of his subconsciousness again.

Sarah, too, cast her gaze at the head gear for a moment and discovered that she remembered the events from that day on the French coast all too well. In fact, now that she took a look around by herself, it seemed that not much had changed inside of the TARDIS since then. In one of the room's corners laid a hat stand which had toppled over during the attack on the time machine, along with the Doctor's floppy fedora next to it.

The Doctor didn't ask what had happened or why he was obviously feeling the way he did, and Sarah didn't explain, either. Instead she studied his face attentively for the signs of more memories returning to him, while, with some effort, he pulled his eyes away from the brass head gear and continued to look around.

On the edge of her field of vision, she noticed Harry approaching them. There was a worried expression drawn on his face as he pointed back at the door to remind her of the danger outside, but Sarah held up a hand to signify him not to interrupt the Doctor. She held firmly onto the hope that the Time Lord might still be able to break the spell out of his own accord. _This was his TARDIS, after all! It had to do the trick!_

A few more seconds passed in silence, and the Doctor's gaze met some objects on the floor next to the time machine's entrance. Not too far from it, just down the few steps, someone had tossed to the parquet his red coat and multi-coloured scarf. If Sarah had to guess, it had been most likely the Doctor himself, and it must have been not too long after the Master's escape with the TARDIS, too, judging by the control room's overall state. For a moment, the assistant wondered what had happened to the Master, even though she realized that there was no one around to provide an answer to the question.

In the meantime, the Doctor was staring vacantly at the impossibly long scarf on the floor – though it looked less impossible now that it laid there in a disorderly pile of wool. His fingers reached up to run through the tassels of the much shorter piece of knitwear he had bought some weeks ago. It seemed that the metaphorical cog wheels in his mind were working, trying to figure out what all these déja-vus meant.

But just at that moment, another, slightly louder banging from the door reminded the three of them of something much more important: The reflections were still out there, and they would find a way in, sooner or later. After all, the TARDIS key hanging visibly from its chain on the Doctor's neck meant that his double also had a copy of it. As soon as their enemies had figured out if and how their key worked, the danger would be inside of the time machine with them!

His thoughts disturbed, the Doctor raised his gaze from the floor, but his lack of words and the frown on his face meant that his confusion had still not let up.

"Doctor, I hate to rush, but we really need you to remember right now.", Sarah begged him, and he finally turned his face towards her again. This uncertain look in the eyes of a man lost in his own mind was not becoming of him, and she felt twice as sorry that it was necessary to insist on her request. "You have to fly the TARDIS out of here."

A brief smile crossed his lips. "Fly? A police box?", he asked laughing, as though she had made a joke.

But Sarah was not joking. In fact, her mind could not be further from it. "Yes, fly. Or de-materialize. Whatever suits you best. _But o_ _nly you can do it!_ " He worriedly knitted his brows, somewhat overwhelmed with the sudden pressure, as Sarah placed her hands on his arms and began to push him into the direction of the console. At first, he allowed himself to be directed forwards by her, but as they neared the inner railing, he locked his feet suddenly in place, and looked back at her over his shoulder while Sarah stumbled slightly into him.

"How? How do I do that?", he asked.

"Take a look at the controls.", Sarah said in a breath, in an attempt to calm herself as well as him. "Don't think, just… feel your way around it. I'm sure something will come back to you if you just try." She gave him a light, almost begging, smile, but she could hardly hide the bitterness she felt. Although she had enjoyed to see him in a human life for a while, she could not wish more for his true self to return than in this moment. It was too painful to see him act so differently in this familiar environment.

He nodded his approval before he finally continued to walk towards the central console. This time, out of his own accord, and so Sarah waited and watched patiently. Once or twice he glanced back at her, seeking her reassurance as he familiarized with the many buttons and switches, but very soon the controls had his full, undivided attention. His hands hovered over them, and moved about in a pattern that overlapped with Sarah's memory of him. She could not tell for sure, but she assumed it was the sequence for setting the coordinate program and taking off. Of course, the action he had performed the most often...

"Muscle memory...", the Doctor muttered quietly, as he must have come to the same conclusion. Mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do, he hesitated another second before he decided he had to give it a try and ran eventually through the pattern once more, this time not just imagining the actions, but performing them.

The interior light of the TARDIS lit up a little brighter. Before, it had not been as bright as it should be, but not as dark as it had been back then at the French coast, either. Still, Sarah could only hope that the trusty old time craft would not fail them right now. The chances that someone had repaired her during the Doctor's absence were looking rather grim, she imagined.

Finally, the familiar wheezing and groaning sounds of the TARDIS' working de-materializing circuits filled the silence in the control room, echoing down the corridor nearby. Sarah remembered catching her aunt in the act of cleaning a harp, which had produced a similar noise – but now she was thinking how much different, how much better the original was. And how she had longed to hear it again!

Harry's face lit up as well as he exclaimed: "Well done, Doctor!" and he exchanged happy smiles with Sarah next to him.

That was before they realized they had gotten their hopes up too early...  
Within another five seconds, the sound of the TARDIS began to jitter, and the interior lighting began to flicker, too.


	27. As Time Will Come (Ep5)

"Oh… no, **No,** **NO**!" Staring at the console in fright, the Doctor raised his hands back over the controls. He knew he had caused a dangerous situation, but now he had to undo it somehow! Hurriedly, he examined all the buttons again, while his mind raced to pick up even the faintest traces of muscle memory. There had to be something that gave him a clue, just any hint at what action he had to take in order to stop the TARDIS' de-materialization process again. At first, the Doctor attempted to run through the previous procedure backwards, but the systems remained unresponsive. Sarah hated to see the expression on her friend's face as he frantically searched for another solution. The panic that showed in his features was almost unnatural for him. Maybe a part of him, too, had noticed that the operation of the TARDIS was supposed to be to him what riding a bicycle was to most humans: An inherent skill that could not be forgotten. Yet he had, and his lack of memory had left him behind lost, uncertain and frightened.  
More than once he reached out towards a switch, but then he hesitated and decided otherwise.

In the meantime, the flickering lights began to dim, and the TARDIS' sounds became more and more distorted. Gravity, too, began to feel strange to Sarah. In her fingertips she noticed a strange sideways pull, and even though it was subtle, it alarmed her deep within. Secretly, the young woman awaited the dreaded sound of the cloister bell to fill her ears any moment now…

" **Sarah!"** , the Doctor suddenly lifted his gaze off the controls to seek her help. "Is there a fail-safe system we can activate? Or an emergency stop button?"

Sarah shook her head as she raised her voice over the de-materialization sounds of the TARDIS. "I'm sorry, but – No, not as far as I know!" It was a horrible feeling that there was nothing else for her to say or do.

Meanwhile, Harry's gaze wandered between her and the Doctor. He, too, was frightened, but was also still looking at the man running around the hexagonal console with expectation, despite the pilot's obvious lack of skill. "Doctor, you've got to stop it before the universe folds in on itself or something…!", Harry begged of him.

" _ **What do you think I'm trying!?"**_ , the Doctor snapped back rudely, glad to be given a reason to take his stress out on someone. Yet his frustration lasted no more than a few seconds before he turned back to Harry with a plea for assistance again. "If you have any idea how to operate this thing – please! - I'm open to suggestions!"

Two more seconds passed in which Harry tried to reply something, but failed on words. Obviously, he had little to no knowledge of the time machine, less even than Sarah. Before the medical officer was forced to admit to it, though, another slight shift in gravity caused the Doctor's attention to return to the TARDIS immediately. He rushed around the console once more. His hands were always hovering over the controls. "What do I do? _**What do I do!?**_ ", he muttered to himself several times, and not very quietly, either.

In an almost desperate act, the Doctor eventually decided for one of his many options, and flicked a switch on the console. As though he expected the machine to spit sparks back at him for doing so, he had pulled his hand away almost immediately again.  
Thankfully, whatever he had done was the right thing, and the TARDIS' de-materialization sound finally ebbed away, the lights, as well as gravity, stabilized again. In a matter of roughly five seconds, the situation had calmed back down.

Harry sighed in relief, but unlike him, the Doctor was still coming to terms with his own lack of competence. He bit into the fist he held raised in front of his face as he retreated from the controls, staring at them. "I don't know what went wrong...", he said once he had found his speech again. "I know that I should know, and I've tried to get us out of here, but…" He shook his head as he left the sentence unfinished.

Sarah's heart cracked a little as she felt his distress and so she quickly walked back over to him, hopefully before the feeling could etch into his mind to cause further conflicts with his true identity. "It's okay, don't worry about it.", she told him swiftly. To help him snap out of it, she rubbed her knuckles against his arm until he turned to look into her face. "We'll find another way. We always do."

"I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised.", Harry added in an attempt to support her. "This machine is much too difficult to operate it on passive memory alone..."

"Or, maybe the TARDIS can't take off at all.", sighed Sarah, before she turned her gaze from Harry back towards the Doctor and the console in front of him. She tried to match her memory of him running through the de-materialization procedures against the actions he had performed a few seconds back. "I'm almost certain you've done it right, but if she's damaged, then maybe it's just of no use...", she mused.

Though the Doctor shot her a glance, he did not reply or comment in response to her and Harry's assumptions. He did, however, look very disappointed of himself despite the well-meant words of his friends. For a few moments he eyed the console from a safe distance before he eventually approached it again. He might have liked to give it another go, but on the inside he probably knew that it was pointless. There was no further fragment of memory returning to him, and so he just leaned on the edges of the furniture piece and hung his head in frustration.

Sarah looked at him with eyes of pity, wishing she had some actual advice for him, and not just shallow words of encouragement. But even she could not prevent the awkward moment of silence from settling between them. If it only was true silence... and not the sounds of the reflections still trying to break in and constantly reminding them of the danger a few yards away. As Sarah closed her eyes for a second, she wished that they would finally give it up.

"...By the way, Sarah, what is that?"

Sarah turned her head as Harry spoke up to see him pointing at the brass coated head gear hanging from the TARDIS' ceiling. "That's the… thing the Master used to… change him with.", she explained briefly, along with a short nod in the Doctor's direction. Since the former Time Lord was most likely as clueless as Harry, the topic managed to attract some of his attention as well. While Sarah moved closer to examine the strange contraption, she noticed the Doctor watching her out of the corner of her eyes.

Months back, when the Master had invaded the TARDIS she had gotten no chance to look closely at the mechanical arm. Now, her mind was trying to figure out the meaning of this thing, the part it had played in changing the Doctor's identity, and whether there was a way to revert the process with this. Maybe this was the solution to everything, and not the familiarity of the TARDIS? Sarah pulled the head gear down to her level. With her fingers she traced the edges of the socket into which the Master had inserted the fob watch while she continued to ponder about the matter.

"A device to change a person's physiology with? Why would the Doctor have something like this in his TARDIS?", Harry raised a very interesting question., but aside from the fact that Sarah could not give an answer, she did not particularly care about it at this moment, either. Not while she had to figure out how it was operated first.

"It's probably not what it is. It might be used for something else entirely, and the Master just abused its function.", Sarah hastily put together, before moving on to more important matters. Almost abruptly she turned back at the professor. "The fob watch, Doctor! Do you still have it with you?"

He blinked at her surprised once or twice, but then began to search through the pockets of his jacket. Very quickly, he had found the velvet pouch which contained the valuable object, and Sarah hurried over to take it off his hands. "What do you want with it? Do you have an idea?", he asked her and raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

Indeed, she had an idea. It was not firm yet, but it was developing rather fast.  
Everyone watched as she carefully pulled the pouch open. Even before she had taken the fob watch out of it, its golden light was flowing out, stronger now than ever. In many, small, feather light streams, the particles were dissipating into thin air. Although it was as bright as the sun, the strange glow did not hurt Sarah's eyes. Quite the opposite, in fact, it appeared to have an unusually comforting property to it. She had to pull her sight away before she became completely mesmerized by it.

Harry must have had the same experience, because he just looked at it with his mouth gaping open, unable to utter an exclamation at the light's bizarre beauty.

While the Doctor's assistant ordered her thoughts, she covered the watch with her hands and walked back to the TARDIS' brass-coated fixture. Despite the damage to the watch casing, she would have been able to fit it into its slot easily, but then she remembered how the Master had activated the machine from the console. Unfortunately, her memory was not precise enough to tell her what he had done exactly, and so she was forced to realize that her first idea was, essentially, going nowhere. Apart from that, Sarah had no intention to force the Doctor back into the same painful procedure unless she was certain about what she was doing...  
Luckily, though, she had not run out of ideas yet. As she turned back to her friends, she held up the palm-sized, glowing object for them to see. "I have a theory.", Sarah eventually began to explain. "I believe that this fob watch withholds the Doctor's memories." The basis for her assumption was simple: The first time she had seen the watch it had been barely glowing at all, but the more the Doctor remembered, the stronger was the glow. There was a relation between these two steadily progressing events which could not be denied. Although she had no evidence to prove which event was causing which, she believed personally that due to the damaged state of the watch, its lock on the Doctor's identity had begun to fail.

"So?", Harry raised an eyebrow at her after he had finally broken the mesmerizing spell of the light. "I say, let's open it, then."

Sarah lowered the arm with which she had presented the watch to them and began to rub the alien object between the palms of her hands instead. "Well, there's the problem...", she started, but the Doctor cut into her explanation to finish the thought.

"The lock is too bent. It cannot be opened.", he added, with a surprisingly serious look on his face.

"Yes.", Sarah agreed, and continued straight away. Although she had no idea why he was suddenly so displeased, she responded with the most confident, serious look she could muster. "But, with enough force, we could break it open." In truth, however, Sarah was not as confident as she tried to be. It was by far not the first time she had considered to destroy the lock of the watch, but the significance and uniqueness of the item had always kept her from it. Just like the Doctor in his current state, it was the worry, raised by uncertainty, which had kept her from taking an action.

Still, as the Doctor had translated the old Gallifreyan engravings for her: _"As time will come,_ _so_ _time will tell."_ And Sarah simply felt the time was right to tell them now.

"I hope you're certain about that, because I'm not so certain we will be able to put it back together afterwards...", remarked Harry, ever so helpful to lend a voice to some of her worries.

Although he was more right than she wanted him to be, Sarah firmly insisted on her idea. Even if it was only because she had no better one. Someone had to take a decision. "Yes, _**I am certain**_."

"Sarah, could I have the watch for a moment, please..?"  
The Doctor's sudden request caused both her and Harry to direct their gazes at him. There was a strangely blank expression on his face as he held out his hand in Sarah's direction.

Although she could not tell from the look on his face why he asked to have the fob watch back, she hoped secretly that a memory had crossed his mind which told him of the watch's true meaning. Only he could know for sure what to do with it. Nodding, Sarah willingly placed the glowing object into his palm. If there was even the slightest chance that he had remembered how to help himself, she did not want to risk making a mistake.

At first, the Doctor covered the fob watch with both of his hands, effectively suffocating its light, and then, while holding it close to his body, he began to walk slowly away from his friends until he stood on the opposite side of the hexagonal console.

Sarah quickly noticed that he held his head low and was avoiding her and the medical officer's expectant looks. "What's the matter?", she asked him. Since he was reluctant to reply, she tried again almost immediately: "Doctor, what's wrong…?"

As he finally lifted his head, there was a strange, new expression in his eyes that Sarah had never seen directed at her like this. Worried for the most part, yes, but also somewhat sorry about the things he was about to say and do. Only as he spoke, Sarah realized he was sorry for having become distrustful of his own, very best of friends.

"I don't want you to break it open.", he argued.


	28. So Time Will Tell (Ep5)

"Why not?", Sarah demanded to know, perplexed by this change of mind.

Although the Doctor looked at Sarah with his head cocked at an angle, his haunting stare made her feel quite uncomfortable. "Because I…", he paused for a moment before he rushed his words again, "Have you considered that, maybe, I don't want these memories?"

While Sarah stared back at him dumbfounded, Harry took it with a bit of humour. "Don't be ridiculous, Doctor; They're yours, after all!", the medical officer said to the older man.

"After everything I've heard from you about this Doctor fellow, I believe I have an awful lot to live up to.", argued the Doctor. "Saving worlds, travelling through time, deciding over life and death of entire alien species… Those are pretty big tasks..."

Sarah shook her head vehemently. "And you have a natural talent for them, there's nothing to fear!", she replied. His sudden reluctance seemed rather illogical to her, but she could only assume it was the still human part of his mind that had taken over again. "In fact, we're saving good old Britain right now, aren't we?"

"From an invasion by the mirror people, that is, I suppose.", added Harry with a light-hearted smile on his face.

The Doctor pondered about their counter-arguments for a little while. "Yes, well… See, that's what I find so hard to believe. That doesn't sound like me, like, something I would do.", he replied eventually. Although he seemed daunted by his own true identity, he tried to plead his case in front of his friends. "Maybe I help old grannies cross the street on occasion, but I've never saved a single man's life. I don't even know who that hero of yours is – for all I know, he might be a very different man!"

"Oh no, he isn't.", chuckled Harry. His response was so quick that it had almost cut into the Doctor's words. "You're every bit as stubborn and unpredictable."

"Not to mention compassionate and clever. Oh! And silly at times, of course! You still owe me one for that prank you pulled on Halloween, by the way!", added Sarah, along with a smile of her own. She couldn't tell exactly why, but she felt that Harry was onto something. "Maybe your view of the world was narrowed down a lot, but that didn't stop you from trying to expand it again, did it?", she argued confidently. Would he not find it strange, if he looked back at his false past life, that he never had the urge to travel before?

The Doctor blinked at the two of them perplexed. He had to acknowledge by the way his friends were speaking to him that nothing had ever really changed for them. They were describing him so bluntly, knowing him so well… Much better than someone should who had only known him for about a month or two. And he knew them, too, deep down. He did not want to miss Sarah at his side, and would willingly place his life in Harry's hands, although the man was supposed to be a half a stranger to him.

"Maybe we've put it the wrong way this whole time...", Harry chimed in again to suggest an alternative phrasing. "I suppose you wouldn't think of yourself as a hero. But, you're a traveller, and your moral code forbids you to walk past people's misery. The rest plays out it by itself, I imagine." He gave another shrug and then passed over to Sarah.

"That's it, exactly! Thanks, Harry.", she nodded at the medical officer. Maybe they had indeed painted a slightly different picture of the Doctor than they should have. As Sarah looked back at the tall man, confidence was sparkling in her eye and she gave him her best smile as she placed her hands on her hips. "Well! Don't expect us to walk past your misery now!"

She was not aware of the infectious property of her own smile until she saw the worries fade from the Doctor's face. He began to chuckle instead, and he turned his sight down for a moment while he shook his head at them. "I don't get why you're so loyal, but I must admit, humans are rather difficult to understand!", he said partly to himself, partly to his friends, and although he was still smiling, did not really seem aware of the words he had spoken.

Sarah raised an eyebrow at him. "...Says the Time Lord?"

The Doctor suddenly lifted his gaze again. No longer was he looking at her distrustful or sorry. "Yes, of course, who… …else?", he confirmed, but trailed off as he finally realized what he had just admitted and furrowed his brows again. "Oh. I see...", he stopped a moment to think about it some more. "Now, I still don't remember... but… I suppose I'm much further in between already than I thought I was..."  
Sarah fixed in his gaze, he walked back around the console to join his friends on the other side of it again. He opened his palms to reveal the glistening bright fob watch anew and held it out to the young woman. "Here, take it! And whatever I say, don't hand it back to me.", he instructed her. "I trust your decision, Sarah." Once the watch was safely back in his assistant's hands, the Doctor stayed close, but folded his own hands behind his back, as though he didn't quite trust himself not to intervene again.

Sarah took a deep breath as she prepared herself mentally for what she was about to do. With her fingertips, she felt for the lock on the watch because the light was now too bright to still make out its details. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought the intensity of its glow had grown even stronger yet as the watch had changed hands. While she tried to dig her fingernails into the crack between the two halves of the fob watch casing, her thoughts were still trying to figure out what she was doing exactly. Though she tried to hold her worries off, she felt them nagging at her from within her subconsciousness. If her theory about the nature and behaviour of the light had been wrong, fatally wrong, then she was about to destroy the remains of the Doctor's original identity. The watch might open, the particles escape, and the Time Lord be gone for good. He would be stuck in this mentally and physically dangerous, in-between state forever. Sarah remembered discussing with Harry the probability of the Doctor remaining human for the rest of his life, but now he was already halfway back to normal. His conflicted mind would drive him mad before the end of his time, eventually. That is, even more mad than he already was.  
Sarah shut her eyes so she would not have to see the mesmerizing light, and prayed internally that she would not be mistaken. But even though she had the will to perform the mostly simple action, her hands failed her. Her palms were damp with the cold sweat of her anxiety, and so she struggled to get a grip on the lock tight enough to tear it open. Knowing that the Doctor's and Harry's expectations rested on her caused her to try harder, but to no avail.

"Here, Sarah... Let me try.", the medical officer's calming voice suddenly interrupted her. As Sarah dared to look, Harry offered to take the fob watch from her hands.

Since the Doctor had given the object to her specifically, and she had been the one to take the decision in the first place, she wanted to do it herself, but she could feel that this was no time to start an argument. Who opened the fob watch, or how someone did it, probably did not matter much, and so, Sarah allowed the medical officer to have the alien object. "Thank you, Harry...", she whispered to him. After all, she was glad that there was someone around who was not as nervous as she was or as conflicted as the Doctor.

Harry wiped it clean with his jacket's sleeve, before he, too, turned it a few times around until he had found its lock. As he exchanged a decisive glance and a nod with Sarah and the Doctor, she knew he had found it and was ready to put her theory to the test.

Finally, with one strong motion, Harry broke the two halves of the fob watch apart.

It cracked loudly, and, as pieces of the watch clattered to the wooden floor, the room was filled with the golden light pouring out of it, unhindered, into every direction. It swallowed the walls, the few furniture pieces and the console, and eventually even Sarah's friends. They young woman was encompassed so completely, that everything seemed to be bright and golden, and that there was no more but her and the mesmerizing light.


	29. Return Of A Time Lord (Ep5)

It should have been too much for her mind to take in, but instead of passing out, she felt the strangest sensation of being perfectly calm all of a sudden The light seemed warm and friendly, like the embrace of a friend. As though she was in a deep dream state, she could no longer feel her physical being, and seemed to exist on a higher plane of consciousness only. Her mind was clear of thoughts and impressions alike. It was an unnatural state, but it was affecting her in such a way that she was not concerned about it at all...

...And then, a voice spoke to her.

 _...As you know, the Master's plan to take me to some faraway planet or time failed.  
Yes, he had me undergoing physical and mental reconstruction, but after the damages my TARDIS had taken from him, she wouldn't let him go anywhere without putting up a fight first. And so, as we dropped out of the vortex early and the Master was preoccupied with the energy fluctuations, I managed to break free._

 _He had not expected me to, surely, and quite frankly, neither had I. Since the process of the Chameleon Arch had almost been completed already, I struggled to retain a single clear thought, not to mention my consciousness. But, with the moment of surprise to my advantage, I overwhelmed him and caused him to flee from the TARDIS._

 _Of course, I followed him out of the door, but by that time I was hardly a Time Lord any longer, and so I failed to remember why I was chasing him. Somehow, though, I still managed to lock the TARDIS door behind me… Curious, isn't it? The force of habit, I suspect!_

 _Even now, I don't remember where we landed. I must have collapsed too quickly to get a look at my surroundings.  
And the next time I woke up after that, I had traded about seven hundred years of experience for a mediocre retelling of half a human life…_

 _But you have heard all about it already, haven't you?_

And then, with the last quiet echo of the voice fading in the distance, a new sound arose in the silence that had been left behind. Too far away and indistinct to identify it at first, the familiar wheezing noise of the TARDIS slowly grew louder and louder.

Sarah only really began to understand in what a sleep-like state she had been when, suddenly, she felt someone patting her arm. It was as though she had truly forgotten about her physical being for a time, but now reality was pulling her back in. She realized eventually that the ground underneath her was made of wooden floorboards, and quite uncomfortable, too.

" _ **Wakey, wakey! Rise and shine!"**_ , said the voice now, but it sounded so much closer and stronger than before. There was confidence, and optimism, and just the hint of a laugh in it.

"Doctor?" Sarah blinked her eyes and attempted to prop herself up on her elbows, though her body still felt strangely numb and unwilling to move. The feeling ebbed away slowly, while it allowed her consciousness to take control again. As she blinked half-aware at her surroundings, she discovered her tall, alien friend squatting beside her. He was beaming his trademark ear-to-ear grin at her, and his eyes were sparkling with joy.

"Blimey, Doctor! What was that…?", muttered the voice of Harry, not too far away to Sarah's left. She turned to find the medical officer lying on the floor next to her, and scratching his head as he recollected his senses. It seemed that he had experienced the same strange phenomenon as she had.

With a light chuckle in response to his companion's reactions, the Doctor reached for the arms of both of his friends, and, after Sarah had found some grip on his wrist, he pulled them to their feet simultaneously. He seemed to do it with such an unexpected ease, too. "Come now!", he called out while his friends recovered from their little, unintended nap. "No wonder you humans miss out on all the interesting events! You spent half of your lives asleep!"

There was a happiness in his voice along with a certain, newly found energy which leapt into Sarah's mind as he spoke like an electric arc. She was grinning back at him even before she was fully aware why. "Doctor! It's _YOU_! I mean; You remember now, don't you?!", she exclaimed, and he nodded in response long before she had finished her sentence.

"Haha! Quick on the uptake as ever, Sarah!", he laughed, and you might be led to believe his face would crack in half if his grin stretched any wider.

Sarah was flailing her hands about as she held back her inner wish to celebrate the Doctor's recovery with a group hug, but when the Doctor suddenly raised a finger in front of her face, she kept still, perplexed.

Though his joyful expression remained unchanged, he directed a somewhat criticizing look at her and Harry. "And still-!", he began anew, "It makes me wonder why it took you so long to figure out what to do with that stupid little watch…!"

"Come, Doctor, we only did what was safe for us to do without putting your health at risk.", Harry attempted to justify the delay. "Besides, aren't you the one with time to spare? What's two months to a Time Lord?"

"Nothing! But to a human, it's a bloody long time!", complained the Doctor. He let his two friends stand there and walked back into the circle of the inner railing to take his rightful place at the console. "And apart from that, let me tell you: the human body is rubbish! How can an organic system be so high maintenance!?"

Sarah had a bad feeling – or rather, a _good_ feeling – that he was only just warming up. Of course, now that he had his superiority back, he had to relish it. She crossed her arms in front of her body while she let him for the time being, and merely exchanged a glance with Harry to transmit an unspoken _"Here_ _we_ _go again…!"_ to the fellow human. Anyone else might have taken the Doctor's words as offensive, but Sarah was glad to hear him complain, to draw that line between his kind and hers, because he was like that: He was not human, and, most certainly, had never wanted to be.

The Doctor made some smaller corrections to the TARDIS' systems and gestured to himself while he looked back on his experiences in the past months to draw more complaints from them. "Your nervous system blows every little thing out of proportions! No wonder you have no brain capacity left to deal with the important questions in life. And don't even get me started on the respiratory system!", the alien continued, before his head suddenly shot up from the controls in front of him and he directed his stare straight at the medical officer. "Harry, tell me! Why is the human body still affected by non-lethal illnesses? Shouldn't your medicine be advanced enough already to rid your society of such petty little problems like the common cold permanently?"

Harry, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, gave a shrug in return. "Well, Doctor… we're trying to solve the problems we have with lethal illnesses first..."

Unsatisfied with the answer, the Doctor simply turned back to the console and muttered grouchily something like "Maybe you'd be more successful with that if you had approached the simple problems first..."

Meanwhile, Sarah began to giggle so loudly that it was not long until the other two members of the current TARDIS crew were looking her way. Once she had regained some control over herself, she attempted to explain what was so funny. "Did you just say the cold was _petty?_ ", she asked the Doctor with some amusement. "What became of: _This wretched cold is going to be the death of me, Sarah?_ " For good measure, she even mocked his voice. If anyone would have known how much he had exaggerated his suffering, it was her!

"He actually said that?"  
Harry raised his eyebrows as he turned to her, and, as Sarah nodded back, he began to laugh, too.

"Like I said, every little thing is blown out of proportions...", the Doctor justified himself. He spoke pronounced slowly, and shot them a haughty glare, just to show – or to pretend – that his dignity was hurt.

"Is that so? I thought that you were just not used to getting ill.", she replied, still smiling and chuckling quietly to herself.

"All right, enough with the idle chit-chat and dilly-dallying!", exclaimed the Doctor suddenly – presumably to change the topic before Sarah could think of more of his statements to blackmail him with.  
With a hum, the scanner screen of the TARDIS opened behind Sarah and Harry, allowing all three of them to take a look outside. They were still in the mirror world, all right, but the picture showed that their reflections, along with a couple of others were standing between the support frames below them now. Yes, _below_! The TARDIS was hovering! Sarah didn't even know the machine was able to do that!  
"Once we've made it out, we still have to deal with the Cobalttonis' invasion machine; The tetrahedron, as you called it. Which, of course, is no false declaration...", their pilot explained further, as though he had always known what they had been dealing with.

Impressed by the space craft's hover mode, Sarah could not help but notice that the time machine appeared to be working properly, after all. "Just how did you get the TARDIS to move again? I thought she was still damaged?", asked the young woman the Doctor, knowing very well that he had the answers now. All the answers!

"Oh, the TARDIS can bypass a broken conduction path herself, if only she has enough time to gather the energy for it. And she's had plenty of time recently.", replied her friend with ease. "You see, the problem was that my muscle memory could only recall the coordinates for London, but the coordinate system inside of this pocket universe does not extend far enough to have an equivalent to London. Of course it couldn't work. I was tearing the pocket universe's edges towards its centre by accident."  
He was smiling victoriously as he took hold of a lever. "Not this time, however! This time, we're breaking right out of here back into our own universe!"  
Taking a glance over to Sarah, then Harry, they knew he finally had a plan. The Doctor waved them over to his side. "You better hold on to something! It's going to be a very bumpy flight.", he warned his companions, though he was slowly pushing the lever forwards even before the two of them had made their way over to the railing.

The TARDIS tilted forwards lightly, which caused Sarah to stumble across the step into the inner railing, but she managed to grab a hold of Harry's arm, who had been slightly quicker to make it to the centre of the room. The medical officer pulled her closer so she could steady herself by the console frame like he did and they exchanged a smile. Things were finally looking up now!

When Sarah turned back towards the Doctor next to her, she noticed him licking his lips as he put the lever to full stop and eagerly waited for the forces of acceleration inside of the TARDIS to increase. Through the scanner picture, they watched as the TARDIS spun forwards through the seemingly infinite pocket universe. Whatever force the time capsule was exerting on its surroundings, it caused the world around them to distort and blur, like a bent mirror that was being shaken, or the ripple a drop caused on the reflective surface of still water.

"You're breaking through the infinite loop to get to the interface to the outside world!", realized Sarah with a gasp.

The Doctor smiled at her with pride. "Let's see what their field stabilizers are made of, shall we?"

Beyond the ripples in the pocket universe, the real world appeared, along with the vague outlines of UNIT soldiers still fighting against their reflection counterparts. The TARDIS shot forwards, towards that window, and with a loud crash, they were free!

==== ==== End of EPISODE 5 ==== ====

* * *

 _So obviously, I am not quite done yet!_  
 _It seems, however, that Episode 6 might turn out a little short, now that this story is merely missing its conclusion. Not that it will be easy to write, there are so many things that need explaining in order to wrap everything up._

 _Anyway - there's not much for me to remark on Episode 5. It was much fun to write and adds so much to the character's premise and moral of the story._


	30. Out Of The Looking Glass (Ep6)

==== ==== EPISODE 6 ==== ====

 _{ The conclusion! }_

Mirror shards went flying everywhere as the TARDIS burst out of the largest of all mirrors in the warehouse – the one Harry had examined before he had plunged into the pocket universe. The crash was so loud that the fighting between the two parties was temporarily suspended and everyone looked up at the bizarre, flying police box spinning above their heads.

Inside, the crew was looking at their military friend, the Brigadier, through the scanner picture. The UNIT superior was staring at them with his mouth gaping wide open and, after everything the man had already witnessed during his highly unusual career, it was a rare sight to see him so baffled. The TARDIS must have been the last thing he had expected to surface out of a looking glass at this specific point in time. But it just went to prove that wherever the time machine appeared, it brought hope with it.

"I should take a snapshot of that expression!", laughed Harry at the Brigadier's reaction.

Meanwhile, Sarah clapped her hands together. "We made it! We're out!", she cheered, and almost forgot for a second to hold on as the Doctor tilted the space craft sideways. The young woman's laugh was unexpectedly cut short as the TARDIS' mid-flight noises were starting to sound distorted again, but as her and Harry's looks went over to the Doctor, his joyful expression had not changed.

"All right, all right...!", the pilot said to his machine as though it was listening to him. "I can't keep her in orbiting mode this close to a planet. Let's land immediately before I have more damages to repair…!"

He brought the TARDIS down in a circling motion to land right next to the pillar onto which the only real tetrahedron was lying. The space craft touched down with a thump, and the echo that was coming from the time rotor deeper inside of the TARDIS subsided slowly. When he walked away from the console and took a few steps towards the exit of his craft, the Doctor began to search the pockets of his professor's jacket. "Now, I'm going to need my sonic screwdriver…", he explained briefly, but Sarah noticed him knitting his brows as he failed to find the object in question.  
In order to make his search a little easier, he turned back around and began to unload the contents of his pockets onto the furniture piece the console was housed in. There was a bit of small change, two sets of keys, a bus ticket, two spark plugs, a tin box filled with caramels and a pen – not the usual odd assortment of items, and his pockets were not quite as dimensionally transcendental as they used to be, but the bad habit had obviously stuck with him even through his temporarily earthbound life.  
"Has any one of you seen it?", the Doctor asked his companions and ran a hand through his hair as he took another look at the items he had collected during the last weeks, seemingly unable to understand why his human self had kept them.

"And you've told me it's a mistake to clutter one's pockets…!", scoffed Harry, who had watched the Doctor empty his pockets once before, but remained impressed by the collection of trinkets still. It probably went without saying that he was promptly shot a glare in return.

"That's not true! Not at all!", denied the Doctor instantly, although both of his friends knew better.

Suddenly, Sarah snapped her fingers, and ran over to where the Doctor's red coat laid on the TARDIS' floor. "Over here, scatter-brain!", she called to the Time Lord and within a few seconds, she had pulled the silver and red metal rod from one of its unnecessary many pockets and held it up for him to see.

"Of course! Just where would I be without my sonic screwdriver!?", he responded, grinning broadly, and with a few long strides, he had crossed the room to take the tool from her hands.

"I know where you'd be without me." Sarah pulled the screwdriver back out of his reach, so he could not get it at first, but let him have it on the second try, just to make him think about his words for a moment.

His grin softened slightly as he admitted: "In a very unhappy place, Sarah." For a second or two, he allowed Sarah to smile back at him, before he turned to Harry. "Come now, we're far from finished yet!", he called over to him. And, as the Doctor headed straight for the TARDIS' exit, both of his companions were quick to follow him out of the door.

Just a few steps away from the old police box stood the stone pillar, and even though all the mirrors were facing their way, the Doctor did not hesitate a moment to advance towards the tetrahedron. Now that they were right in the centre of the maze's star burst pattern, the image of the three friends was replicated instantly across all the other mirrors, along with the TARDIS behind them. Sarah noticed how Harry was looking nervously about themselves, expecting each of the mirrors to burst to artificial life. Unlike them, the Doctor paid no mind to the danger surrounding them and lifted the sonic screwdriver above the tetrahedron. As its whirring noise interacted with the strange little device, the tetrahedron suddenly cracked open and revealed slits along each of its ends. Only now Sarah could see that it was actually made up of several smaller geometric bodies, which had fitted perfectly into each other. Its inside lit up briefly, before the whole of the tetrahedron eventually powered down, losing some of its bright ochre colour in the process. Triumphantly, the Doctor picked the strange object from its pedestal.

"Was that it, then?", asked Harry. The nervousness was evident in his voice as the Doctor did not respond immediately, but lifted the strange device up in front of his eyes instead.

"That's rather fascinating, isn't it?", wondered the Time Lord to himself once he was finished with the brief examination, but turned to the medical officer standing behind him with surprising calm. "Oh no, Harry. I've merely closed down the pocket universes."

Sarah was about to ask him what would become of the people trapped inside of them, when she noticed the mirror images around them starting to shimmer in a strange light. At first, it was only the most inner circle surrounding the trio which was affected, but soon the glow spread further outwards, until it had reached the corridors in which UNIT soldiers were still trying to hold their ground against their own violent reflections.

Sarah heard how Harry next to her was gasping fearfully. "They're activating again…!", he uttered, and had placed a hand on her upper arm before she could remind him to keep his calm. It was probably not as serious as it seemed – after all, the Doctor's unwavering confidence told her that there was nothing to fear any more.

After all the mirrors had turned active once again, they suddenly started to spill out everything that had been inside of them. There were survivors tumbling out of the pocket universes – civilians, mostly, and a few of the UNIT soldiers which had been captured just a few minutes ago, but apart from all the real people that were thrown back into reality from one second to the next, there were also more of the facsimile humans. Sarah recognized them instantly by how they lacked the moment of disorientation after finding themselves back in another universe. A rough estimation revealed there to be at least equally as many copies as there were originals, and the total number of people appearing out of nowhere was quite shocking.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was stuffing the deactivated tetrahedron into the pocket of his corduroy jacket. "Hm.", he began now, a slight hint of worry in his voice this time, "I will admit, this is not quite what I had expected..."

"Oh, you don't say, Doctor…!", complained Harry, who had become aware of the threat quickly after Sarah had tapped his arm and pointed out the copies to him. They were only just taking their first steps through the real universe towards the humans, but with a surprising amount of deadly determination.

The Doctor was signalling his companions to move back in the direction of the police box. "Better stay near the TARDIS", he suggested as they watched how the facsimile copies were slowly forming a circle around them.

" **Doctor! What is going on here?"** , the voice of the Brigadier suddenly echoed through the warehouse, eventually reaching the trio of friends.

Although the Time Lord stretched to look past the mirror frames and chaotic mass of people, he failed to discover the UNIT leader at the other end of the hall. **"Take the survivors and get them out of here!"** , he shouted back. **"And hurry!"**

"All right – **Soldiers; Advance! This is a rescue mission now!** **Everyone else; Out! Get out as quick as you can!** ", bellowed the Brigadier, even though his men were already doing the best they could – and barely holding their ground!

At about the same time, Harry was walking around the TARDIS to make sure that no mirror image was sneaking up on them from behind the time machine. When Sarah noticed his movement, she turned around to watch him take a peek around the corner of the police box. Just at that moment, Harry suddenly stopped and opened his mouth to name whatever he was looking at. "Miste-!" He had not even uttered a single word in full when, out of the blue, a fist came flying at his face. The punch, well directed at the medical officer's cheekbone, sent him staggering backwards.

"Harry!", Sarah called out for him fearfully, and rushed to his aid at once. Yet as she rounded the TARDIS' corner herself, the situation revealed itself to be a lot less dangerous than it had seemed.

"Benton! It's me, you imbecile!", Harry rectified the situation, rubbing the sore spot on his cheek.

Standing to his opposite was an apologetic looking Warrant Officer, who, up to this point, had been assumed to have gone missing. "So sorry, Lieutenant! I thought you were the copy. Nothing's broken, I hope?", he said, but did not appear to be regretting his mistake as much as the medical officer wanted him to. As Sarah smiled at him, he smiled back. It was good to see him alive, and, without any doubt, he was also glad to be back in the real world.

After testing the movement of his jaw, Harry eventually decided to forgive him for it. "It doesn't seem like it...", he replied, before finally a smirk had found its way on his face as well. "But greet me in a less painful way next time, will you?"

"Benton!", cheered the Doctor as his sight fell on the soldier's familiar face. He paid no mind to Harry's suffering, or the misunderstanding which had occurred.

"Doctor!", replied Benton. It seemed that he tried very hard to match the Doctor's broad grin, but failed utterly, of course. "You recognize me!"

The Doctor nodded reassuringly. "But of course I do!" Sarah knew that even if he had not, he might have said the same, but this time the answer was definitely genuine.

A sudden crashing noise caused all of them to look into the direction of the warehouse's entrance. On their retreat from the reflection people, and while taking some of the survivors with them, one of the UNIT soldiers had knocked over a mirror. Following a split second later, one of the artificial humans shattered into a thousand shards.

"Ah!", exclaimed the Doctor in sudden enlightenment and pointed at what appeared to have been but a mistake. "Somebody's got the right idea! Now that all the victims are out, we can finally try to rid ourselves of the copies!" Sarah watched closely as he changed the settings on his sonic screwdriver. Though there were still some of the living reflections between them and his target, he pointed his tool at one of the next closest mirrors. Its whirring was a lot louder now, and several pitches lower than before. The noise was so unpleasant that the Doctor's assistant decided it was better to cover her ears before it would blow out her ear drums.

But it was not only unpleasant to her! Behind one of the walking mirror images, the reflective surface of a looking glass began to wobble and bend inside its frame, until, after almost half a minute, it burst to pieces. Again, one of the copies went with it, but the copy that had been affected by it stood at the other end of the hall, so that victory was not of much use to them. Thankfully, its colleagues had not gone over to take their revenge… yet.

"That wasn't very effective, Doctor… You can't go round and try to burst each of them this way. The reflections will have us torn to bits before we're done with them.", stated Harry.

"You're right, Harry.", admitted the Time Lord, frowning at the damage he had caused. "It was effective, but not very efficient. I need to boost the screwdriver's power somehow…!"

Sarah nodded towards the TARDIS. "We've already got everything that we need right here, don't we?"

A brief smile crossed his face as the Doctor shot her a glance. "We do, but it would take even longer to put something together. Not to mention I'll be spoilt for choice in there. Maybe we should take the dangerous approach and just try to knock all the mirrors over?"

"Say, Doc, can't we just-?" To everyone's surprise it was Benton who spoke up. "I mean, can't you just enhance your tool with a microphone and a set of loudspeakers? To my knowledge, a lot of old factory halls or warehouses have at least some basic one-way communication system..." Everyone followed his gaze as the UNIT officer looked up at the warehouse ceiling to spot a dusty loudspeaker hanging in each of the four corners.

"Splendid idea, Benton! Yes, that'll do very well!", the Doctor praised him. He looked about, until, with a few hasty glimpses, he had found the control room built on stilts underneath the warehouse ceiling, as well as the staircase leading up to it. It was furthest away from the hall entrance, and they had to make it past a number of their enemies, but with Benton, Harry, and the Doctor in best of health again, the chances were looking rather good for once.  
"This way! I'll go first." The Time Lord waved for them to follow him, and shot another brief glance to his assistant before he set off. "Stay between us, Sarah."

"Right-o.", replied Harry and exchanged a look with Benton to figure out how to organize the rearguard.

Unafraid of what laid before him, the Doctor ventured forth, towards the corridor which would lead them straight to the bottom of the staircase. As he did so, he held the sonic screwdriver raised before him to let its horrible noise ring out through the warehouse. Because he was not standing still, there was not enough time to burst the mirrors left and right of him, but the reflections nearest to him started to shake and bend, disoriented by the vibrations in the air. Sarah stayed close to him as promised, despite the unpleasant feeling the sound caused within her, while the two UNIT members followed them. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Benton diverting an attack on their rearguard as one of the reflections broke out of its confused state a little too early. At the same time, Harry watched the soldier's movements carefully, trying to learn from him. After all, Benton must have found a good way to defend himself after having been trapped in the mirror world for so long.

"Have I already you told that I saw Miss Shaw in the pocket universe?", Benton asked the medical officer while walking, almost a little bit too casually for the situation they were in. "I must say, I didn't expect her to get captured."

"Well, that might have been our fault, I suppose.", replied Harry. "We got her into this when we couldn't have the Doctor to help us out."

With comparatively little resistance this time, the four of them made it successfully to the staircase. Only as they started climbing the stairs, a number of their enemies recovered from the temporary disorientation and decided to come their way. The Doctor stopped as he saw the reflections following after them, and urged his party members to go ahead towards the office door. When Harry passed him by, he caught him by the arm to keep him from rushing past too quickly. "Wait, Harry. Here, take this for the moment, and keep them off our backs, all right?" Before the medical officer could look twice, he had pressed into his hand the sonic screwdriver and was already back on his way to join Sarah at the head of their team.

Meanwhile, Sarah had been tearing on the handle of the office door. "It's locked, Doctor!", she shouted back. He had to change the settings on the screwdriver and open it…!

But her friend had rather different plans now that he had handed his tool to Harry already. "No time to lose! Step aside, Sarah!", he called out, and his sudden command had gained a sharp edge, which caused her to react immediately. Utilizing the full force of his short sprint, the Doctor threw himself shoulder first at the thin metal door of the office. The crash as the lock burst was loud enough to make Sarah wonder for a moment whether she had actually heard the lock or the Doctor's collar bone. The young woman was ready to follow him in, but then he stopped abruptly again, only a yard or two into the office. She managed to squeeze past him into the room to see what had caused him to freeze in motion.

They had already been expected.


	31. Seven Years Of Misfortune (Ep6)

Right in front of them, there was a man sitting in the office's only chair. He appeared to be middle-aged, with narrow eyes and high cheek bones defining the features of his face. A top hat sat on his head and a heavy black coat lined with fur cloaked most of his figure. Both of his gloved hands were resting on a walking cane before him; perfectly calm, despite the chaos surrounding him. Though the combination of his clothes was not necessarily hinting at any century in particular, the top hat caused Sarah to wonder whether he might have bought it in the 19th century.  
While Harry and Benton pushed themselves past her and the Doctor into the safety of the office, the stranger eyed the four intruders with a haughty glare, but offered no greetings of any kind.

"Who are you?", Sarah spat out, since no one else dared to say something. Though she was not exactly sure why, the man's appearance reminded her of the fleeting glimpse she had caught of the culprit who attacked the Doctor so many weeks ago. Could it be that he, the warehouse owner, and the one behind all of this chaos, were all the same person?

"Does it really matter who I am?", responded the man and finally rose to his feet before them.

She noticed that the communication controls were sitting right behind him, on top of a cabinet, not too far away from them. They had to get there soon, because Harry and Benton would not be able to hold the reflections off for long. Their enemies were still on their way up the stairs, and the medical officer was prepared to paralyse them again using the screwdriver's unpleasant sound, but if only one of the reflections would make it past the UNIT members, they would be trapped. The office was a dead end.  
Worried that the man would try to stall for time, Sarah attempted to take a quick step forwards, but the Doctor held out an arm to stop her from acting too rashly. With a brief, stern glance he signalled her that the real danger might, in fact, be standing in front of them.

"You have won again, haven't you? And it's all because of that meddling, _impossible girl_ who saved your Royal Navy friend...", the stranger continued to ramble.

Harry turned his head at the mentioning of his former employer. "...Are you talking of Clara?", he wondered for but a moment, before Sarah pointed him back towards the reflections.

"Keep watch!", she reminded him, afraid to lose their rearguard because of Harry being so easily distractable.

However, the stranger paid no mind to the medical officer and continued by addressing the Doctor directly. "He warned me of your companions, you know? Your old friend, the Master."

"Are you in league with him?", the Doctor demanded to know instantly.

The man's face remained without a smirk, or any other trace of emotion. He appeared to be almost inhumanly indifferent about everything. Even his eyes barely moved around the room, as though he was hardly aware of the humans' presence. "Not as much as you might think, Doctor. The scheme was his. I merely helped with the realization. He is in a desperate state, as you know, and should not be wasting his precious time playing games with you and the humans."

The words of the stranger just confirmed the suspicion Sarah has had about the Master's whereabouts already: He had wanted to condemn the Doctor – and the population of Earth, too, perhaps – but instead of coming back to finish the job, he had left instantly to find a solution to his own miserable state. To their misfortune, however, this mysterious man before them had involved himself in the events…

"The Cobalttonis' invasion machine, which he brought to this planet, might be a powerful weapon in itself, but it needs some guidance to function properly.", he finished his brief explanation.

Sarah noticed the Doctor narrowing his eyes in suspicion. "And why would you provide this guidance? Just who are you, and why do you hold a grudge against us?"

"You, Doctor, have defeated me in the past.", answered the stranger, but hesitated for a moment in an odd way, as though he had to figure out why the Doctor failed to recognize him. "Of course, I inhabited a different body back then."  
As Sarah became aware that this person before her was possessed by a malicious alien intelligence, the danger which the Doctor had pointed out to her earlier seemed very real all of a sudden.  
"I am willing to admit that I did not expect to encounter so many of your friends. In fact, your companions always appear to be my downfall.", the strange alien concluded from his own history.

"Well, maybe you should try to confront me on a different planet next time!", the Doctor said with delight, opening his arms as if to present the humans which surrounded him. "Everyone on this world is a friend of mine, and in return for their hospitality, I protect them from dangers such as yourself, and the Master, and any other kind of megalomaniac out there." Since the stranger did not reply, the Time Lord lowered his gaze and glared at him in an unexpected, suddenly threatening way. The smile on his face seemed a little mad, if not dangerous now. "Which is why I highly suggest for you to step aside."

Despite the, perhaps, empty threat, the other man showed no sign of resistance. "I will, Doctor. My time here has already passed, anyway.", he mysteriously explained. "Until we meet again."

Sarah gasped, slightly shocked, as the man's figure suddenly burned away like paper. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn he had been hollow on the inside! With a sizzling noise, the entirety of his body vanished before them, leaving only a small business card which Sarah spotted floating to the floor. She managed to catch a glimpse of the initials _"G.I."_ , before even the card was consumed by the strange, otherworldly fire. In the end, not even a trail of ashes was left to attest that the man had ever existed.

Unlike his female assistant, the Doctor was hardly impressed by the vanishing act. "Hm! I don't think he really belonged here. Perhaps he attempted to change history, and failed.", he thought out loud.

Sarah scratched her head, feeling rather unsatisfied to be left without proper answers, not to mention still perplexed at the stranger's way of leaving a conversation. "This leaves so many questions...", she wondered quietly.

"So many questions the future is bound to answer.", the Doctor assured her with a quick smile, before he finally strode past the office table and the empty chair, towards the communication system. Sarah got a foreboding feeling when she saw him turn a knob on the device to full volume. "Now, Harry, I'm going to need my sonic screwdriver back!"

The reflections had advanced quite far on the staircase already, and so the medical officer looked far from happy to be left without a proper means of defence. He opened his mouth, maybe he thought of voicing his worries for a moment, but then decided to trust the Doctor's knowledge and skill. "Here, Doctor!", he called to the Time Lord and stretched out the hand which was holding the tool.

Sarah quickly stepped in to pass the screwdriver from one hand to the other, in order to keep the medical officer from having to throw the object across the room. Without another moment's hesitation, Harry and Benton then attempted to put the unhinged door back into position to make sure that there was at least _something_ between them and the violent reflections.

"Cover your ears, everyone!", the former professor instructed them as he placed his near magical tool right above the office's microphone. Next, he pressed a button on the communication device to start the transmission to the loudspeakers in the hall.

By the time the whirring noise rang out once more, Sarah held her hands already firmly pressed onto her ears. Even so, the noise was numbing her senses, and resonating in her stomach and lungs in an unpleasant way. Internally, she counted each second that passed, hoping for the tool to have achieved its effect soon. In contrast to herself and the UNIT officers, the Doctor appeared to be barely affected by the noise. He grimaced a little bit, but kept going steadily.

It was 28 seconds, before there was a reaction to the Doctor's plan. But what kind of reaction it was! A crashing and splintering echoed throughout the warehouse, louder than anything Sarah had ever heard, as all of the mirrors shattered into a thousand fragments at the same time. She could not help but duck instinctively, and just about noticed how Harry dove for safety as well. The defensive reflex came just at the right time, because a shower of tiny glass shards grazed her right arm and shoulder. The office's windows, too, had given in to the sonic vibrations.  
And then, everything was over as quickly as it had happened. When the young woman opened the eyes she had held shut tightly, she discovered Harry kneeling on the floor next to her. He offered a hand while he, himself, was rising back to his feet and a sigh of relief escaped her as she carefully beat the dust off of her clothes. The shards had been too light to leave scratches on her hands and sleeves.  
Meanwhile, the Doctor walked up to them, neither shaken by the loud noise nor touched by any stray piece of glass. He looked out at the hall outside of the office to see the extent of the damage he had caused, and his companions joined him once they had recovered from their light shock.

The warehouse below was a mess. As though a big box full of glitter had exploded right in the middle of it, the shimmering shards of mirror fragments were covering the warehouse floor and reflecting the light of the brightly lit ceiling lamps into every direction. Thankfully, the UNIT soldiers and former victims had escaped the range of the flying shards before anyone had gotten a fragment stuck in their eye.  
And, amidst the mess sat, as usual, the blue police box, completely unharmed.

"That's a lot of bad luck for you, Doctor…!", mumbled Sarah as she stared out over the dozens of empty metal and wood frames. Each of them a seven years of misfortune, or so went the saying...

But the Time Lord turned to her with a proud smile on his face. "At least now I'll live long enough to see the curse wear off!"


	32. Zest For Adventure (Ep6)

A few minutes later, and the nationwide emergency could safely considered to be over and the Doctor's little party was making their way down the staircase slowly. On almost every step there were the remains of the false people, now no more but pieces of glass painted silver. Sarah placed her feet very carefully, knowing that even though their former enemies were no longer lethal, falling into a pile of shards still warranted a trip back to the hospital. Amused by her athletic exercises in trying to avoid the more dangerous areas of the staircase, the Doctor smiled at her for a time before he finally offered a hand Sarah could steady herself on.

"Just one more question, Doctor…!", she began, once she had regained some balance and could finally stop flailing her arms.

"Out with it, then.", he said, while guiding her downwards on a safe path.

"Just how did the TARDIS end up in the mirror world?"

The Doctor looked almost a little disappointed that she had to ask at all. "The same way everyone did. The tetrahedron doesn't care whether the matter absorbed is organic or not. Just think about it; What else should the Master, or our mysterious stranger, have done with the TARDIS, hm?"

Together, they reached the bottom of the stairs, and, as Sarah raised her gaze off the floor for a moment, the TARDIS was sitting not too far in front of her, rising out of the broken mirrors like a monument. "They couldn't move her again because you had the key all this time... and even if not, she was still damaged, wasn't she? And if they would have left her… I don't know; wherever she had landed...", she began to think out loud, but the Doctor continued for her before she had figured out the rest of her sentence.

"… one of you would have found her, eventually. They couldn't allow for that to happen." He was smiling at her again, and even though no one said it, they were aware that, if the TARDIS had been found sooner, he would not have stayed human for as long as he did.

"So they hid her away in a pocket universe.", concluded Sarah.

The Doctor lifted a finger to signal her she was right. "Exactly." There, she had figured it out, almost by herself.

As they neared the TARDIS, the Brigadier approached them from the other end of the hall. **"Doctor!"** , he called out even before he had reached them. "Was it really necessary for you to put the warehouse in shambles? We were almost hit by the flying shards!" Annoyed by the disarray he was walking through, he kicked some of the mirror fragments out of his way – which he could do safely thanks to his heavy soldier boots.

"Ha! Listen to the man who wanted to call in the RAF earlier!", laughed the Doctor in response, before he unexpectedly turned back over his shoulder to Harry with a look that sought for understanding. "Humans, always complaining…!", he said, with a sigh that was just meant to mock them.

As soon as the Time Lord was facing the Brigadier again, Harry leaned in Sarah's direction. "Time Lords, always complaining about humans…!", he added quietly, but melodically, to turn the joke back on their alien friend, which caused Sarah to giggle.

Her alien friend shot her another glance, wondering what had caused her sudden jolly mood, but she just shrugged innocently and cocked her head to transmit an unspoken _'What are you looking at? We didn't say a word!'_ while biting her lower lip to keep the rest of the giggles in check.

Though the Doctor appeared to have missed out on half of the joke, the Brigadier had watched them long enough to understand what had happened inside of the TARDIS. "I see, you've recovered your memory…", he concluded and nodded approvingly, "Congratulations, Doctor."

In response, the Doctor gave him best, proudest, grin; Happier than ever to be who he was.

In the meantime, Benton, too, had caught up with them, and was now properly greeted back by his superior.  
"Mister Benton! It's good to see you back!", said the Brigadier with a proper smile for once.

"Back and ready for duty, Sir!", saluted Benton, who still seemed very chipper for someone who had spent the past weeks in another world. Sarah noticed how his gaze drifted past the UNIT superior and stopped at the sight of someone standing at the other end of the warehouse. He was waving over to them before she had figured out who he was waving to. **"Oh, hello, Miss Shaw!"** , Benton called out.

And there she was. Not that Sarah knew her much, or much about her. But from the pictures she had seen she recognized the ginger-haired woman wearing a lab coat as a former UNIT member. Liz Shaw smiled at the soldier, and lifted a hand to wave back at him politely.

It was just then that the Doctor had spotted her as well. As he called her name, Sarah was rather suddenly reminded that the woman had once been his assistant, quite a while before she had become affiliated with UNIT herself. **"Hello, Liz! Are you doing all right?"** , the Doctor shouted over to her and waved at her, too, but in a grander fashion than Benton had done it.

Again, Miss Shaw was waving back, though a bit hesitantly all of a sudden, as though she was not quite sure why she was responding to the gesture.

For some reason, her confusion only added to the Doctor's joy of seeing her again. **"** **That's right!** **It's me, the Doctor!"** , he added for an explanation, and waved twice more, still grinning happily. His former assistant must have known him only with the face he had prior to the current one, Sarah realized.

"What do you plan to do next, Doctor?", the Brigadier cut into the conversation they were about to have half across the warehouse.

Once he had averted his eyes from the sight of his former companion, the Doctor turned rather suddenly towards the time machine in front of which they had gathered. "Well, I can't leave her sitting in this mess, now, can I?", he explained briefly, and was just on his way to unlock the doors. Was he already about to leave Earth behind again?

For a few seconds, Sarah looked back at Liz standing several yards away from them and wondered to herself why the Doctor would choose to miss out on this chance to catch up with one of his former assistants. Of course, he could always come back for a chat if he wanted to, but had he ever done it…? Sarah did not really allow herself the time to ponder about it in depth. Once inside the TARDIS, it would not be long until he was off, and she would not allow him to leave Earth without her, so, she too, turned to the space craft to keep the door open until she had said her good-byes.

"There's no stopping him and his travels, is there?", asked the Brigadier with an eyebrow raised and his arms crossed in front of his body as he watched them run away from the damages and duties they were about to leave behind.

Sarah smiled back at him. "Not even when he's stuck on Earth.", she said, thinking back at how the Doctor's zest for adventure had shone through his false identity and driven him towards his true self eventually. The young woman still stood in the open TARDIS door to look back at the medical officer.

"Are you coming, Harry?"

If their latest adventure had proven anything, then that they were still a great team. The least she could do was ask, because Harry deserved to be invited again. Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen aside, they used to have so much fun. Besides, Harry was staring at her with the eyes of a dog someone had just tied to the front of a grocery store. She knew, he wanted a proper good-bye, but she was not ready to give one. And she was not going to stay, either.

"Uhm, well…", he stuttered hesitantly and looked at the TARDIS with some distrust.

She could not force him to come along if he did not want to, but since he was not giving her a straight _'No'_ , she had the impression he was toying with the idea. Maybe he wasn't as reluctant as he wanted to be. Mind you, joyriding in space was not a reasonable thing to do for such a reasonable fellow as him, but it had to be tempting.

Harry glanced to his superior, seemingly asking for approval, but the Brigadier just rolled his eyes and shrugged in defeat. If the Doctor deemed any of his staff capable of saving the universe, he should have all the help UNIT could offer.

"Well, but just for a moment!", Harry decided eventually, though sighing, since he had lost the argument with himself. "I don't want to be blamed for stranding us on Nerva again…!"

Oh, there was a possibility that he was not coming back to Earth for a time, and he would not step on board had he not accepted it. Sarah guided Harry past herself into the TARDIS and quickly waved good-bye to Lethbridge-Stewart and Warrant Officer Benton before she retreated into the police box as well.

"Bye, everyone!"

...

After almost a minute of silence, while the two UNIT members waited for the TARDIS to vanish before their eyes, the Brigadier stated calmly: "I wonder where they will end up this time..."

"In a lot of trouble, I reckon. Never seen 'em anywhere else so far.", Benton replied with a shrug.

"That is true, Mister Benton. Indeed, very true."


	33. He Should Have Known - EPILOGUE (Ep6)

==== ==== EPILOGUE ==== ====

Inside of the TARDIS, the Doctor was just throwing a switch on the console. With a light creaking and hissing of valves, the mechanical arm of the so-called chameleon arch retreated into the ceiling of the control room. "Good-Bye chameleon arch! Hope to never see you in use ever again!", the Doctor exclaimed and watched the contraption disappear behind a wooden panel sliding shut above of him, before he walked over to the room's corner where the hat stand had toppled over. In his attempt to restore a bit of tidiness to his space craft, its owner put up the hat stand straight again and picked the fedora up from the floor to jam it back on his head, right where it belonged. As a trade-off the Doctor allowed the hat stand to have the orange-brown striped scarf from his neck and the brown professor's jacket.

In the meantime, Harry had been walking around the console room. For the first time, now that they were no longer in life-threatening danger, he was able to get a good look at every detail of the wood panelling and decoration. "I haven't gotten the chance to say this before, but I really like your redecoration, Doctor. Looks more like a proper ship now, all this old-fashioned charm of wood.", he said.

"Hm! I quite like it myself!", agreed the Doctor while his eyes searched the room for something he either could not find or did not know yet what it was.

All the better that Sarah was there to point out the obvious which he was always overlooking. She quickly snatched his red coat and scarf from the floor, and, beating the surprisingly little amount of dust off of them, brought the articles of clothing to the person they belonged to.

"Oh, thank you." The Doctor smiled gratefully. Before he had any chance to take the coat off her, she folded it open for him to put his arms through the sleeves.

After that, she was left with the woolly monster in her hands. All grey and mustard, brown, red, purple, khaki and beige: More colourful than any scarf really should be. Sarah noticed a few loose threads sticking out here and there where the colours had once been joined. This piece of knitwear had been through a lot already. It was a miracle that the tassels were still intact after having been dragged across metal gratings, rocks and through several kinds of shrubs.

Once the Doctor was finished adjusting the collar of his coat, he looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to give the scarf to him. It was just then, before she raised her gaze to meet his eyes, that she remembered a short conversation the Doctor once had with his childhood mentor. "You know, I remember you saying once that the scarf is a symbol for friendship...", she recapped as she held one of the scarf's ends out to him.

"Oh, but you must pay more attention, Sarah!", he replied with a slightly disappointed tone, before correcting the bit of conversation she had pulled from her memory. "I was speaking of Tibetan traditions that time, and they tend to gift cotton scarves."

Instead of just accepting this piece of knowledge, Sarah pouted a bit, dissatisfied that he had seemingly missed the point of her statement. Instead of saying so, she just kept looking at him until he had figured out by himself why she was making such a face.

Eventually, a soft smile spread on his face. "But yes, this particular specimen carries many good memories of friendship...", he added, and so Sarah finally smiled back at him. While he put his favourite piece of knitwear back around this neck, he glanced back at its less impressive, two-coloured sibling hanging on the hat stand. "This one, not so much...", he mumbled and his smile was alleviated as he pondered the recent memories which had been woven into its wool.

Sarah put her hands on her hips. "Come now, Doctor, it wasn't all that bad, was it?", she wanted him to admit, because it most certainly had not been too bad for her. All the worrying, maybe, but aside from that, she had enjoyed to see him face the challenges of an ordinary life for once. The same challenges she had to put up with most of her life. Not that she would wish for him to go through all of that again, but she could not help but wonder where he might have ended up with that taxi of his…

"Easy for you to say! You don't know what it was like in my head.", protested the Doctor, and Sarah figured, that being half a Time Lord only must have been very confusing in the end.

"Very messy, I would presume.", Harry chimed in, chuckling to himself.

The Doctor huffed in response, slightly offended by his presumption. "I'll have you know, Harry, that I am, in fact, a very tidy person."

Out of the Time Lord's field of view, Sarah turned to Harry with a wink. "No, he isn't.", she mouthed before returning to her normal volume. "Well, not always, anyway." The medical officer might not know, but the Doctor also had a habit of turning the TARDIS topsy-turvy when looking for something he had misplaced a century or two ago. Sarah still remembered being buried under a pile of clothes as he once rushed into the wardrobe looking for his 500 year diary. To this day, she was not even sure he had even noticed her presence until she had cried for oxygen.

Whether the Doctor had heard her remark or not, he decided not to insist on his opinion this time around.

"By the way, have I told you already how I managed to escape the Master?", he attempted to change the topic.

Sarah knitted her brows. Surely, he was aware that he already had? Was he speaking of another encounter with the Master than she was thinking of? "...You mean after that ordeal at the French Coast?", she asked.

"That's just what I mean.", the Doctor confirmed and walked around the console in the middle of the room until he had found a good spot to tell his story from. "Because, as you know, the Master's plan to take me to some faraway planet or time failed. Yes, he had me undergoing physical and mental reconstruction, but after the damages my TARDIS had taken from him, she wouldn't let him go anywhere without putting up a fight first!" He chuckled and gestured a bit as he spoke, but Sarah took the first little pause he made in his speech to interrupt him.

"...And while the Master was busy coping with the failing machine, you managed to break free.", she continued for him since she was rather well-informed about it. "Yes, you've told us already."

But he didn't know. The Doctor just looked at her with big eyes, surprised that she had – almost – read his thoughts. "Really? Have I? But when?"

"Just after the watch opened, you spoke to us… or me. No, us.", Sarah tried to explain to him, then realized halfway in-between that maybe only she had heard his voice through the strange golden light. She turned to Harry to check with him whether he agreed with her phrasing, and so she rectified her sentence once more after he had nodded back at her.

"That's funny. The burst of energy knocked me out for a moment just like the two of you. Maybe you've caught a glimpse of an alternate future in which I am telling the story to you now?", the Doctor wondered aloud. Something about that idea caused him to put on another one of his Cheshire cat grins. "A little bit of Artron energy goes a long way, as they say...", he added mysteriously.

"Artron energy…?", asked Sarah, hoping for a more detailed explanation, which he did not really want to give.

"Background radiation of the time vortex!", was all that he said, before changing positions on the hexagonal console to place his fingers over the flight controls. "Now, let's set the coordinates for our next destination, shall we?"

As though on command, Harry shrugged and sighed. "Well, time I'll better be off then...", he announced and pointed back at the TARDIS' exit. Though he took a few steps in the general direction of it, he was not exactly in a hurry.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for a bit, Harry? I could drop you off at home, you know!", offered the Doctor, suddenly looking a bit disappointed to loose his second companion.

The medical officer raised his hands to politely decline the offer. "No offence, Doctor, but I'd rather go with UNIT..."

But by the time he had spoken the words it was already too late. With delight, Sarah heard the de-materialization noise of the TARDIS fill the vast insides of the time machine.

"Ah! Sorry, Harry!", the Doctor called out. Needless to say, he didn't look particularly sorry about this little mishap. "It appears the de-materialization process was already activated! You don't mind taking a little detour, do you?" Quite the contrary; He was grinning at Harry and probably hoping for the same contagious effect that it always seemed to have with Sarah.

But Harry just smirked."Oh...I should have known…!"

==== ==== THE END ==== ====

* * *

 _And that's it! I can barely believe it, but the story is finished._

 _At the same time, having Harry back as a companion gives me a set-up for the next big story, though it's not out of the conception phase yet. I will only publish something that will be finished, so you'll have to wait and see whether that project goes anywhere._

 _Until then, there are a couple of one-shots to be written/published. Especially a couple more which belong to 'The Ordinary People' Ep3. There were so many scenes I could have put into Episode 3, just little snippet's of the Doctor's human life - but there are only so many "fluffy" scenes I can bore someone with, before the main plot needs to be put back up again._  
 _If you care to read them, keep an eye on my short story collection "The Scarf Unravelled"._

 _Speaking of which, I suppose the "mirror"-plot could have been put together a little better and I could have made notice of the Great Intelligence earlier, but I suppose you have noticed that I was much more focused on the premise instead, and that paid off rather well, if I dare say so._

 _Hope you've enjoyed reading, and here's a special little thanks to zeropointchoirgirl for reviewing: Thank you!_


End file.
